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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 

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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



6 



STATEMENTS : 
THEOLOGICAL AND CRITICAL. 



/ 



BY 



DANIEL D. WHEDON, D.D., LL.D., 



Author of " The Freedom of the Will," " Commentary on 
the New Testament," etc. 



COLLECTED AND EDITED BY 
HIS SON, 



THE REV. J. S. WHEDON, M.A., 



THE REV. D. A. WHEDON, S.T.D. 



NEW YOUR: 
PHILLIPS & HUNT. 

CINCINNATI: 
G PANS TON & ST OWE. 
1887. 




AND HIS NEPHEW, 





Copyright, 1887, by 
PHILLIPS & HUNT, 
New York. 



PREFACE. 



In the summer of 1884, when the late Dr. Whedon 
was becoming convalescent from a serious illness, 
adopting the suggestion of a friend, who was familiar 
with all he had ever written, he proposed to himself 
the employment of a measure of his recovered 
strength and lengthened life, in the collection of 
the more important discussions of his pen, with the 
possible preparation of such additional new chapters 
as would give them a somewhat complete and sys- 
tematic form. The twenty-eight years, then just 
closed, of his editorship of The Methodist Quarterly 
Review were richly prolific in his contributions 
to the highest thought — philosophical, theological, 
critical, and religious — of his time. In this abundant 
material, sufficient for many volumes, is much of 
permanent value ; but, locked up in the pages of 
the Review, it is largely beyond the reach of the 
younger thinkers in the ministry and laity of the 
Church, to whom it might be brought in a separate 
form. 



4 Preface. 

In the execution of this project, Dr. Whedon was 
unable to proceed beyond a partial outline and the 
indication of a few passages for insertion. What he 
thus intended, but, from failing strength, could not 
accomplish, lie intrusted to his son and nephew to 
take up and cany to completion. The plan adopted 
by them made necessary a few verbal modifications, 
in no case, however, touching the sentiments of the 
author. They have found it expedient, with the ap- 
proval of the publishers, to enlarge the plan to two 
volumes instead of one, as originally contemplated. 

The present volume comprises the briefer discus- 
sions, chiefly selected from the Review, arranged in 
appropriate departments. The companion volume, 
entitled Essays, Reviews, and Discourses, is made 
up of the longer productions of the author, with a 
biographical sketch. j. s. w. 

i>. a. w. 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

Theism 11 

The Blankness of Atheism 11 

Plotinus on Theism 16 

God's Great Object in Creation is Self-manifestation 19 

Intellective Forms impossible without an Intellective Forma- 
tive Power 22 

Superiority and Priority of Mind to Matter 29 

The Design Argument 31 

The Doctrine of Design versus the Doctrine of Condi- 
tions 35 

Design Shown in the Primordial Properties of Matter 41 

Mathematical Law and Design 42 

Nature of Space and Infinity -. , 43 

The Infinity of a Being does not Exclude Personality or In- 
telligence 48 

Who made God ? . 49 

The Spiritual Monotheism of the Old Testament , 50 

Pantheism 51 

Buddhism 55 



6 



Contents. 



PAGE 



Anthropology 58 

Difference between Physical Force and Formative Life- 
power 58 

Contrast between Mind-power and Matter-force — Grant and 

Granite 60 

Heat in Brain Action no Proof that Mind is Force 64 

The Spiritual versus the Material Thought-Tablet 65 

Instinct and Reason as Distinguishing Brute from Man 68 

Trichotomy 70 

Physiology and Psychology 73 

Greatness of Man as Mind 77 

Chronological Priority of Civilization to Barbarism 82 

Peschei on Races 88 

Evolution 92 

Darwiuism 92 

Later Darwinism .- 95 

Mivartism, Three-Souled Foetal Development 98 

Animal Superfluities Explained by the Doctrine of Plan. . . . 102 
Review of Winchell's The Doctrine of Evolution and Sparks 

from a Geologist's Hammer 105 

The Two Evolutionary Maps— TVinchell and Rawlinson 114 

Is Evolution always Ascending and always Slow? 117 

Cultural Deterioration Becomes Structural 119 

Are Racial Distinctions always Local? 120 

Degeneration, or Evolution Downward 124 

Impassible Criteria Separating Man from Brute 127 



Contents. 7 

PAGE 

Genetic Evolution and Genesis 130 

Evolution Requires Little Change in Interpreting Genesis. . 134 

Life 135 

Definition of Life 135 

Huxley's Protoplasm 139 

Trinality of Pure Reason. Intelligence, and Vitality 141 

Animal Mind and Vegetable Vitality 112 

Religion and Science 143 

Divine Progress in Geological Life-history 143 

An Anthropoid not a Man 145 

Man's Immortality Requires an Adam 147 

Structure of the Mosaic Cosmogony 150 

Resemblance Between Religion and Science 153 

Conflict between Christianity and Science 157 

The Created World-system and Christianity 163 

Christian Evidences. 163 

Responsibility for Moral Beliefs .... 168 

Definition of Miracles 174 

Miracles no Contradiction of Law 176 

Supernatural isms and Miracles 181 

Conscious Experimental Evidence 1S3 

A Paleyan Argument 185 

Historic Christianity 186 

Three Witnesses to Religious Truth 188 

The Destructive Criticism based on Antisupernaturalism. ... 190 



8 



Contents. 



PAGE 



The Authority of the Bible 192 

Inspiration 197 

The New Testament Canon — How Made 199 

The Oneness of the Scriptures. 201 

The Christian Church Older than the New Testament 205 

Arminian Theology 207 

The Latitudinarian Arminians before Arminius 207 

The English Compromise 215 

Shedd's History of Christian Doctrine , 217 

Freedom and Responsibility 222 

Basis of Moral Obligation 227 

Dr. Shedd's Doctrines of Free Agency 229 

"Shall" and "Will." 236 

Battles of the Commentators 238 

Evil Entailed by Natural Consequence 241 

The Issue Between Arminianism and Calvinism. . . .- 244 

Methodism 248 

Methodist Theology from the Oriental Church 248 

Doctrinal Divergences of the Early Methodists 249 

A Healthy Church requires Symmetry of Doctrine 252 

Methodist Orthodoxy 254 

Methodism at Wesley's Death 256 

Methodism and Unitarianism 257 

Bishop Spalding on Romanism and Methodism 260 

Methodism and the New Theology 265 



Contexts, 9 

PAGE 

The Methodist Idea of Human Probation 269 

Witness of the Spirit 271 

The Class System 277 

Methodism and the College 279 

Methodism and Revivals 282 

Emotion in Eeligion 286 

Methodist Evangelism 2€9 

What Shall be the Future of Methodism ? 291 

Infant Salvation 298 

Historic Survey of the Doctrine of Infant Regeneration 298 

Infant Damnation 300 

Wesley's Excision of Hereditary Guilt from Our Articles. . . 302 

The Relation of Children to Redemption 309 

The Relation of Baptized Children to the Church 315 

Methodist Authorities on Infant Regeneration 321 

Infant Xon-probation 328 

Ceeisttan Perfection 330 

Regeneration and Entire Sanctification 330 

Grades of Depravity and Holiness _._ 331 

Correctness of our Definition of Entire Sanctification 333 

Sanctification Does Not Destroy our Human 2sature 310 

Abuse of Figurative Terms 315 

Liability to Apostasy from Entire Sanctification 313 

Example of George Bell 319 



10 



Contents. 



PAGE 



ESCHATOLOGY 351 

The Millennium through the Diffusion of the Gospel 351 

Premillennialism 354 

The Thousand Years' Reign 356 

Genealogy of Premillennialism 359 

The Second Advent 362 

Resurrection of the Body 364 

Anastasis and Egersis 368 

Dorner's Resurrection, a Germination 371 

Cooke's Resurrection a Substitution 374 

The Unseen Universe 378 

Our Knowledge of Immortality 382 

The Specter in the Brain 385 

The Vanishing Specter 393 



STATEMENTS: THEOLOGICAL AND CRITICAL. 



THEISM. 
The Blankness of Atheism. 

Buchner is the Atheist of Europe. He exhibits in 
behalf of a still more radical creed the strong, coarse 
vigor of deistical Thomas Paine. 

We promptly reject the doctrine, of which, for a brief 
period, the North American Review was made the organ, 
that Atheism is not a demoralization and a just ground 
of personal disapprobation of its advocate. Doubtless 
an Atheist may have his natural excellences, and yet in 
the center there is a moral desert. Of this the pitiable 
Buchner is an illustration. What but a moral perver- 
sion at the center — a sad reversal of the deepest and 
best sensibilities of our nature — can send forth such an 
utterance as the following in regard to our own per- 
sonal immortality ? " The thought of an eternal life is 
more terrifying than the idea of eternal annihilation. 
The latter is by no means repugnant to a philosophical 
thinker. Annihilation, non-existence, is perfect rest, 
painlessness, freedom from all tormenting impressions, 
and therefore not to be feared. There can be no pain 
in annihilation, as little as in profound sleep, but merely 
in the conception of annihilation. . . . The idea of an 
eternal life — of not being able to die—is, on the contrary, 



12 Statements : Theological and Ceitical. 

the most horrid that human fancy can invent, and its 
horrors have long been expressed in the legend of the 
never-dying Ahasuerus." * 

And as in his view matter is the sole real existence, 
and mind, thought, is, like combustion, but one of its in- 
cidents, so thought may utterly cease, and the universe 
hereafter become one mass of irrecoverable unintelli- 
gence. " Physics show that, as there was a time when 
no organic life existed on earth, so will the time arrive 
— no doubt an infinite and incommensurable period — 
when the physical forces now existing will be exhausted, 
and all animated beings plunged into night and death. 
What are, in the presence of such facts, the pomp- 
ous phrases of a philosophy about the designs which 
become accomplished in the creation of man ; the incar- 
nation of God in history ; the history of humanity as the 
subjective unvailing of the absolute ; the eternity of con- 
science, liberty, and will, etc. ? What are the life and the 
efforts of man, and all humanity, compared with the eter- 
nal, inexorable, irresistible, half-accidental, half-necessa- 
ry march of nature ? The momentary play of an ephem- 
eron, hovering over the sea of eternity and infinity." f 

In the hearty eagerness with which Biichner riots in 
hideousnesses like these, it is, that we recognize the truly 
hateful moral perversion in which Atheism originates 
and into which it reacts. A poor relief of the blackness 
here displayed appears in the courage with which the 
moral sentiments of the best of our race are braved ; 
especially when that courage is contrasted with the pal- 
tering cowardice of men like Maudesley, who manifest 
the wish to produce the conclusions of Biichner covered 
by shams and ambiguities. 

If the perusal of Biichner does not increase our moral 
respect for the Atheist, if it reveals very clearly to the 
* Force and Matter, pp. 204, 205. Ibid., p. 105. 



Theism. 



13 



naked eye that he is centrally and intensely a morally 
detestable man, its argument does not increase our 
respect for his intuitive or logical intellect. They are 
a poor, base, brutal set — the very " hogs of Epicurus's 
sty" — who are convinced by such arguments. From 
the deep corruption of the heart the effluvium ascends 
to stultify and madden the brain. Such moral rotten- 
ness may and does prove contagious ; it seizes on, and 
rages among, moral constitutions congenial to it ; it 
may, from the stench and racket it makes, seem for a 
while victorious over the age ; but it cannot truly con- 
quer. Not only is there a God in heaven, but there is 
an assertion of God in the human spirit that will ever 
reign triumphant in an ever-increasing Church on earth. 
We must say that we rise from the perusal of Biichner 
with an intense moral abhorrence of the man, with a 
deep revulsion against his whole system, and with a 
profounder, firmer, more exulting conviction that God 
lives and reigns. 

On Biichner's attempt to refute the argument from 
Design by showing what absurdities, misarrangements, 
and cruelties exist in nature, we suggest : 

1. Matter and force alone in universal space could 
never give us a systematized world. Without directive 
mind, including perception and volition, matter could 
never be lifted by mere unintelligible force out of chaos. 
Every divergence, however slight, from pure unmean- 
ing chaos into plan is demonstrative of mind. The 
clearer the plan, the clearer the design. But we cannot 
open our eyes without seeing that the world is not 
chaos. When we contemplate the wide, wide world, we 
every-where recognize, just as plainly as we recognize 
visible things, that those visible things have meaning 
and plan in them. 

2. Defects, maladjustments, supernumerary limbs, 



14 Statements : Theological and Critical. 



disprove not the design, but only impeach the perfect 
wisdom of the designer. That man has no wings for 
flying does not disprove that his feet were made for „ 
walking. " Contrivances," says Btichner, " apparently 
purposeless, are numerous in the structure of animals 
and plants." True, but without design there would be 
no " contrivance," no " structure," no " animals," no 
"plants," nothing but chaos. All these disorders are 
indeed difficulties in the way of maintaining the absolute 
wisdom and goodness of the designing mind ; and, as 
being mere difficulties and not refutations, are justly 
and fairly obviated by rational hypotheses so as to form 
a theodicy. 

3. Touching the existence of defects in creation let 
us note the following points: (1.) Creation, unless the 
absolutely perfect should create another absolutely per- 
fect — that is, unless God should create solely another 
God — must be limited and dependent, and therefore 
imperfect. A universe of archangels would suffer under 
the evil of limitation, mutual collision, and dependence. 
(2.) In a complete universe our minds seem to demand 
an infinite variety of existences and natures, ranks and 
orders. But in order to such variety there must be 
those that are lower, who suffer under their inferiority. 
(3.) In a complete universe there ought to be free be- 
ings, able, in a limited area, to act with a little inde- 
pendence and responsibility of their own. The whole 
should not be a mere machinery. There should be the 
dignity of liberty and government working out their 
development and results. But free-agency thus implies 
the possibility of evil doing, transgression of the per- 
fect law of eternal right. Thus there must be the cre- 
ated capability for sin, the broad area spread for possi- 
ble sin, the permanent systematic non-prevention of 
actual sin. The greater the magnitude of this govern- 



Theism. 



15 



mental and judicial system, and the higher its worth 
and dignity, the greater must be the power and possi- 
bility of sin on the one hand and of rectitude on the 
other ; the more perfect should be the law under which 
it exists, and the more wonderful the blending of intense 
justice with condescending mercy, and the rich results 
of ultimate glory. (4.) For the development of the 
activity of living beings, and especially of free moral 
agents, surrounding evils to be escaped and goods to be 
attained are necessary. There must be the possible 
prize of good to bring out the eager putting forth of 
strength for the attainment. There must be the men- 
acing evil and the shock of danger to arouse the vig- 
orous spring of escape. And, especially in the moral 
world, for all high unfolding of virtue there must be 
temptation to vice. Seductions to soft indulgences are 
necessary for the development of heroic constancy; the 
fires of persecution are necessary to the most glorious 
of all spectacles to us known in the universe — the mar- 
tyr's crown. Temptations to the intellect, even to believe 
a damnable lie, are necessary for the display of a high 
moral faith. There must be contingencies in the polit- 
ical world to afford possibility for a Jefferson Davis, in 
the commercial world to afford area for a James Fisk, 
Jr., in the scientific and moral world to allow plausibil- 
ity to a Louis Buchner. We do not say that the wicked 
deeds of these men must by them be performed, but 
that there must be power and room for their perform- 
ance. And from their performance God will, with none 
the less damnation to them, reap his harvest of good 
results. (5.) What wonder, then, that the physical 
world should respond in due degree to this quality 
of the intelligent moral world ? There must be in 
such a world uniformities so that men may calculate 
and infer, and contingencies by which they must be 



16 Statements : Theological and Critical. 



left in doubt. There must be pleasures and pains more 
or less consequent upon conduct. There must be laws 
and natural processes, which exceptionally cross and 
defeat each other. Earthquakes, pestilences, malformed 
limbs, and monstrous births are, in such a system, no 
inexplicable problems. Yet amid all this mingling of 
order and disorder, what a cheering point will be the 
development of progress ! But no man can disprove 
that defects are necessary both in and to the best possi- 
ble universe. 

Plotinus on Theism. 

Neoplatontsm, the philosophy of the Alexandrian 
school of the earlier centuries, was a profoundly thought 
explication of the mysteries of the universe. It was a 
deep attempt to answer the questions ever occurring 
to the human mind : How do we know the outer uni- 
verse ? What is God ? How comes creation ? What 
the relation between God and man ? What is duty ? 

First Plotinus finds himself at start awakened by two 
queries : What is truth, and how is it knowable ? All 
that sense perceives is in motion, perpetually changing 
— ceasing, and becoming. It has all the characteristics 
of unreliability and unreality, and is, therefore, mere 
phenomena and show. At start, then, Plotinus aban- 
doned, as absurd, what the Materialists held as an axiom 
— that matter is the sole substance, and sense the sole 
test of truth. On the contrary, beneath this flimsy 
outer coating of phenomenon, he recognized, by the 
transcendent reason, the true substance. This is the 
permanent and the real. 

But how does the mind go out and discover and know 
this reality in full certainty ? Plotinus assumes a max- 
im to explain this, which seems to us neither proved nor 
self-evident. The maxim is that " like knoweth like" 
We know our thoughts because they are ourselves 



Theism. 



17 



thinking. Mind knows its object, because the object 
is part and identity with itself. Hence the inference 
that subject and object are the same. And this 
" bridges the chasrn between the soul and the world ! " 
It does so, by identifying the two opposite banks of the 
chasm into one, and allowing the chasm " to slide." 

But by a process of ascending into our higher facul- 
ties, we transcend the merely sensible, and with the eye 
of pure reason we look with direct intuition upon the 
pure reality, the cause in all causation, the infinite. 
"This is ecstasy. It is the liberation of your mind 
from its finite consciousness. Like can only apprehend 
like; when you thus cease to be finite, you become one 
with the infinite." Thus with the highest certainty of 
the highest faculties, we see the surest reality, God; 
and if we rightly appreciate the philosophy, are pretty 
much God ourselves. 

Still the question remains, thus transcendently beheld, 
What is God ? In the intense white heat of the con- 
ceptions which answer this question, our own logical 
crucible and tongs, we confess, become about melted to 
uselessness. God is himself the changeless, without mo- 
tion in space ; and how can he evolve changes and fluc- 
tuating phenomena? In other words, how can he cre- 
ate? Plotinus rejects the thought of ascribing to the 
changeless the attributes of personality, namely, con- 
sciousness, perception, and will; for this is forming 
him or it in the image of man. How, then, does the 
changeless evolve changes, the motionless propel mo- 
tion ? The answer develops the Neoplatonic Trinity. 
Phenomena can only be explained by supposing that 
the One is not pure simplicity, but plural. In the one 
divine nature there are three persons or hypostases. 
The first hypostasis is necessarily conceived as absolute 
oneness, antecedent to time or space. For absolute 



18 Statements: Theological axd Critical. 



unity negates past and future, motion or extension, 
thought, and, perhaps, even existence; for we are not 
sure that existence is not limitation. He is, therefore, 
the "immanent negative, the inscrutable anonymous." 
He is to be apprehended in exalted silent ecstasy, as 
" the Nothing and the All." The second hypostasis 
proceeded from the first, not by any motion, not by any 
subtraction, but raying forth as eternal splendor from 
the sun. Thus from inexorable unity we have duality. 
But this duality is held in synthesis by a third hyposta- 
sis, which consists of an intelligence which fuses both 
into one infinite mind. We have thus plurality — a 
three one. 

From this triune deity, which is neither personal nor 
pantheistically one with the universe, but which is in 
its nature necessary causation, arises creation as neces- 
sary effect. Matter being its dark shadow, is rather 
non-being than being, rather negative than positive. It 
is moved and wrought into phenomena, and lawed by 
the supermundane soul. Order is the prevalence of 
law; beauty, the victory of the "idea" over the amor- 
phous; goodness is the conformity to the divine image. 
Evil is negative; it is the absence of law, order, and 
goodness, and so impossible to God. 

Lastly, what is duty? Duty is possible to the phi- 
losopher alone. It consists in mounting above sense, 
ascending into ecstasy, and dwelling in the vision of 
the Infinite. Herein wns Plotinus's great failure; he 
made virtue a philosopher's special prerogative, by mak- 
ing it consist in intellectual rather than moral commun- 
ion with the Deity. Had he accepted the God-man, he 
would have felt how general humanity, in its secular 
sphere, was capable of sanctification and perfect virtue. 
The items of the system are plentifully found distrib- 
uted through the antimaterialistic systems of all ages; 



Theism. 



19 



and especially through the transcendental reactions 
against Locke and Condillac at the present time. The 
career of Plotinus's line of thought runs through such 
successive tracts of beauty and of paradox, as to en- 
chant the fancy while it provokes the ingenuity of 
lively speculatists. 

God's Great Object in Creation is Self-manifestation. 

The great object of God in creation would seem to 
be manifestation ; as he said to Pharaoh, "for this 
same purpose have I raised thee up, to make my power 
known." In reading, in our earlier days, the works 
of Edwards, especially that on Universal Salvation, we 
were often flung into dubious revery on his assump- 
tion that God performed great transactions to show 
forth his attributes to the universe. The atonement is 
a demonstration of his hatred of sin yet mercy for the 
sinner; and hell itself, with its endless misery, is in- 
tended for a display of God's justice to the universe. 
What proof, said we, that the universe knows, or ever 
will know, any thing about it ? Is it, indeed, a fact, 
that when the scales of mortality fall from our eyes, 
we forthwith emerge to a full clairvoyance of all the 
mysteries of the universal republic, and the laws by 
which it is ruled? But the stupendous pages of ge- 
ology, laid leaf after leaf, through ages, in the volume 
of creation, when read by the eye of science, reveal 
the wonderful fact that Omnipotence has been for long 
ages manifesting itself in the most affluent evolutions, 
with no eye but its own to appreciate its almost 
boundless display. Unless invisible critics were sur- 
veying these performances, with all our powers of ad- 
miration, the Deity lias here been, so far as other minds 
than his own are concerned, but, as it were, wasting 
an immensity of miracula speciosa. So far, we say, as 



20 Statements: Theological and Critical. 



other than his own mind is concerned; but may it not 
be somehow that his own mind has its own immedi- 
ate pleasure in this wreaking itself upon an infinite 
variety of creation ? pnfe? TDf3 DtW saith the Hebrew 
bard; "The sitter in the heaven shall laugh at them." 
And if Jehovah hath this ireful laugh at his foolish 
foes, may he not have a laughter of a gentler sort? 
"Flowers are God's smiles," says somebody, worthy to 
have been held in our memory for the beautiful thought. 
But further than this laughter, and even these smiles, 
may we not say that — Deus seipsum delectat — God 
amuseth himself? 

And when we see the volume of the book of the vast 
submundane history unfolded, what find we but a pic- 
torial series of divine sportiveness ? a secret play spell 
of the Creator, all for his own secluded entertainment. 
What funny little contrivances does Hugh Miller de- 
tect in the making and jointing the bones and shells of 
the primitive testaeeae. What beautiful little architect- 
ures, where strength, lightness, and elegance are skill- 
fully calculated, are displayed in the chambers of the 
primitive animalculse. And then such brilliant hues, so 
softly blended, so brilliantly flared, so wittily spotted, 
so tastefully selected. And these were poured forth 
with a conscious boundlessness, and a vast yet regulated 
variety, for no apparent purpose, than to please himself, 
for millions of years, by the unrivaled Lord of Life. 
Doth God love the cunning fix, the quaint device, the 
creative joke, as well as we? Is beauty, as it tints the 
lily, trills in melody, or unfolds in form, a beauty and 
a " joy forever " to our God ? We know that the eagle 
is an embodiment of grandeur; and the humming bird 
is a beautiful jeu d^esjorit. The lion is an epic; and 
the ape a comedy. And for a perfect burlesque, there 
was — for he is now extinct — the poor dodo. Upon that 



Theism. 



21 



melancholy bird, the Creator heaped every thing to 
make him an ungainly stupid clown, who was perfectly 
blameless for being the butt of the company, until he 
sorrowfully slinks from its notice, by dropping out of 
existence. It would seem cruel to pile a certain sort of 
merciless ridicule upon a thing so innocently half-wit- 
ted. And yet the Creator has given to every being its 
compensation. With the universal bribe of conscious 
life, does he hire all animated beings to suffer the ills of 
their position in the scale, for the sake of conscious life 
itself? And do you doubt that they all make the bar- 
gain with full consent ? See how anxiously they pre- 
serve and tend the life he gives, with all the means in 
their power. Attack their life, and they will, if they 
can, poison you, or assassinate you, or pound you, ac- 
cording as they have fangs, or horns, or hoot's. Or, if 
they have no weapons, they will run with the best tug 
of their legs; or finally die in deep pathos, as if they 
would complain, not for having obtained, but for losing 
the boon of existence. Of man, guilty man alone, can 
it ever be said, "Better that he had never been born." 

If these remarks are true, then God performs an in- 
finity of exploitations, that might hold a universe in 
wonder, awe, or amusement, with no eye in the universe 
to witness but its own. Displays of justice most terri- 
ble, of tenderness most sweet, of wisdom most bound- 
less, of taste most exquisite, of quaintness most witty, 
all may be tied together in the infinite knot. " It takes 
all sorts to make a world," says the proverb; and it 
may be true that on the entire <cale, variety is the all- 
comprehending law, on which To Rav, the great whole, 
is planned. 

If this be so, we need no gazing universe to see that 
God may deal with man with a mercy just as tender, a 
justice just as exact, as if a universe were rapt in study 



22 Statements: Theological and Critical. 



upon it. "For the manifestation of his own glory," 
and "for his own good pleasure," are phrases of genu- 
ine, though not despotic, import. And amid the vari- 
eties of possibility, without revelation, it would be in 
vain for man to conjecture his theodicic future. 

Will unredeemed man, in his multiplied millions, as 
aunihilationism teaches, flare out of the scene of being, 
a blasted bud, an abortive start, a burst bubble, an ev- 
erlasting failure ? Or is development the key, as res- 
torationism teaches; and is all intelligent immortal ex- 
istence rolling on the waves of billowy centuries, a 
mighty Amazon, of which damnation is but a backward 
eddy in the course, from whose curves the w ave will, 
in rolling aeons, return to the onward current, toward 
the sea of perfect life ? Or is hell, indeed, the mani- 
festation of the infinite sternness of the divine con- 
sciousness, highest in its character, absolute in its form, 
the serious and forever solemn in the variety, the never- 
ending tragic line in the comprehensive history, the 
melting semitone of the eternal anthem of the universe ? 
Religion never fills the soul with its own unspeakable 
importance, but upon this last presumption. 

Intellective Forms impossible without an Intellective Formative 
Power. 

In The Nineteenth Century for 1878 Professor Tyn- 
dall re-atfirms "the growth of the human body to be 
mechanical," as maintained by him in his Fragments of 
Science. The argument as by him given takes four 
steps, and consists in an attempt to show, in very dif- 
fuse and variegated style, that, as men built the Pyra- 
mids of Egypt, so crystallization can build mechanically 
a pyramid of molecules, and vegetation can equally 
mechanically build a kernel of corn, and organization 
can equally mechanically build a human body. No in- 



Theism. 



23 



telligent power is needed in the last three of the afore- 
said four buildings. Let us trace his four steps," and 
try to ascertain for ourselves. 

1. Mr. Tyndall shows us the Pyramids of Egypt, and 
describes them graphically as being built by " power," 
in "a form" which "expressed the thought of the hu- 
man builder." That is, be it noted, these pyramids 
were built by blended force and intelligence incarnated 
in men. 2. He then tells us that salt and water under 
evaporation will? by molecular force, form itself into 
similar pyramids. These molecules are ' k self -posited," 
" being tixed in their places by the forces with which 
they act upon each other." Here creeps in his first fal- 
lacy, namely : the assumption which no theist is bound 
to concede, that these molecules all march into their 
places without any intellective guidance, insensate mat- 
ter acting as intelligently as so many soldiers stepping 
into rank to form a phalanx. The possibility of such 
action the theist at once declines to grant; and for that 
refusal what remedy has Mr. Tyndall ! The very anal- 
ogy of the Egyptian pyramids warns us that for the 
building of a salt pyramid there must be the same blend 
of force and intelligence to put the blocks in place. 
He, indeed, admits the force to produce the motion ; 
but it is as plain that there is. a selective direction of the 
motion as that there \% force. And it is as plain that 
there are both a force and a selective direction, as that 
there is a molecule at all. Now, as force is a physical 
factor, so is selective direction an intellective factor. 
The theist, therefore^ is not in the slightest degree 
bound to concede that the salt pyramid is built without 
a guiding intelligence any more than the stone pyra- 
mid. 3. Mr. Tyndall next takes up a kernel of corn, 
and, by a polarized light, shows us that the kernel is 
built by the same sort of molecular action as the salt 



24 Statements : Theological and Critical. 



pyramid. He then tells us that, if we " have rejected 
the notion of an external architect " in the case of the 
salt pyramid, we are bound to reject it now, and hold 
the molecules of the corn " self-posited." That simply 
hooks his second fallacy on to his first fallacy. Disre- 
garding the irrelevant phrases about " an external archi- 
tect," which nobody supposes, our theist refuses to grant 
that without intelligent direction united with force the 
molecules can make any movement at all. 4. Mr. Tyn- 
dall lastly takes the animal body, and analogically argues 
with the same inconsequence that the molecules, all 
without any intelligent guidance, "posit" themselves 
in places, each one stepping to his post to form with the 
rest an extended, symmetrical organism ! 

And that is a self-contradictory and absolutely im- 
possible conception. A brick is a big piece of matter, 
and a molecule is a little one ; and if, without any intelli- 
gence, internal or external, a brick cannot, at the required 
instant, start up from the ground and fling itself right 
into the vacant niche formed by the requirement of the 
rising pyramid, how can the little piece of matter, just 
as destitute of intelligent direction or self-direction, 
fling itself at the exact instant into just the exact vacant 
point, in order to furnish a large and complex organism 
consisting of a variety of symmetrical and correspond- 
ent parts ? Suppose the organism be a huge mastodon, 
or a devil-fish, with a thousand Briarean arms, we are 
called upon in vain to believe that an unintelligent mole- 
cule, undirected by any intelligence that can compre- 
hend the whole comj)lex organism, can, at the right 
instant, put itself in the right point ; and that myriads 
of blind, unguided little pieces of matter can also so 
combine with reference to each other as to form that 
contingent and varied whole. Each one particle must, 
with vast varieties of contingencies, act with perfect 



Theism. 



25 



reference to the contingent and varied motions of every 
other particle, and with exact and perfect reference to 
the final whole. And if we suppose the whole cosmos 
to be a symmetrical whole, then an intelligence co-ex- 
tensive with this cosmos, yet not overlooking one mole- 
cule in the whole cosmos, is a logical necessity for the 
due location of each one of the entire infinities of the 
molecules. Theology rightly assumes such a cosmos, 
and so infallibly infers a God. 

Cicero's ancient illustration wrought into modern 
terms, is as decisive an argument as can be selected. Is 
it not perfectly self-contradictory to claim that solid me- 
tallic types could so start into spontaneous action, give 
themselves self -direction, and among an infinite number 
of possible points so posit themselves, each at the right 
point, as to form a Bancroft's History of America? 
First, it is conceded by all physics that every existing 
molecule is inert ; that is, destitute of the power of 
self-motion ; so that the said types could not start into 
motion. And as every existing molecule is destitute of 
self-motion, so all the powers of attraction, repulsion, 
cohesion, and motion belonging to molecules are not 
intrinsic to the molecule, but are addenda, superadded 
to it from a foreign source ; so that even the coherence of 
the molecules by which the solid type is formed is inter- 
polated from a foreign source. But, second, the motion 
being supposed possible, the particidar motion, amid an 
infinity of possible directions, is conceivable only by the 
assumption of selective intelligence. The problem is, 
how can a solid mass of molecules, composing a metal- 
lic type, select its place in view to form this Ameri- 
can history ? And how can this process be repeated so 
that, say, a million types shall so posit themselves as each 
to assume the point requisite to the formation of this 
exact whole? The only solution that the human mind 



26 Statements : Theological and Critical. 



can conceive for such a problem is — selective intelligence. 
And it must not be a mere speck of intelligence in each 
molecule ; but for each molecule there must be a com- 
prehension of the whole history. The position of every 
type has reference to the whole book. The intelligence 
that fixes each type to its place must know the whole in 
order to assign the place for each one. But this book 
itself has a further system of intellective connections. 
It is a representation of an external series of facts be- 
longing to the history of the outer world, the great sys- 
tem of events of the founding of this our American 
nation — a system by which the entire system of human 
history is remarkably modified. The " positing " of 
each one metallic type, then, has a reference to the great 
whole of human history. Now, instead of this book 
substitute the cosmos. There is in that cosmos an 
infinity of relations and references just as clearly intel- 
lective as the relations of the types to the words of the 
book, as the relations of the words to the sense, and as 
the relations of the sense to the great summary of his- 
torical externalities. The whole cosmos must, there- 
fore, be comprehended by one all-grasping Intelligence, 
which takes in at once each molecular item, and the 
cosmical whole, and holds them a unit. That intelli- 
gence can be nothing less than God. To deny it, we 
submit, is an abdication of common sense. 

Mr. Tyndall endeavors to supply the absence of intel- 
ligence by such phrases as "structural energies," "at- 
tractions," and repulsions. But, first, what is a " struct- 
ural energy ? " How does it look ? What is it made of ? 
Who made it ? And the more steadily we look at it we 
shall find it to be a nothing in the world. It presupposes 
a directive intelligence in the molecule, and so we have 
an infinite number of molecular intelligences. But each 
molecule, as we have shown, must have more than a mo- 



Theism. 



27 



lecular intelligence ; it must know more than enough to 
crawl to a point, it must know the whole organism in 
order to know enough to crawl to the point. That is, we 
must have a practical omniscience in every molecule. 

Now, Mr. TyndalPs "structural energy" is a poor 
edition of the " plastic power " of the grand old philos- 
opher, Cud worth; a conception that philosophic theo- 
logians have, for, perhaps, well-considered reasons, dis- 
used. Yet Cudvvorth's " plastic power " was not, like 
Mr. TyndaU's " formative energy," unintelligent. It 
was, as we may say, a so much detty as was necessary, 
set apart for the carrying on of the physical world. 
Indeed, " the plastic power " has received a new illus- 
tration from the old Cartesian doctrine, now adopted 
by physicists, of the " conservation of force." This 
doctrine affirms that there is through all ages the same 
amount of force engnged in the physical cosmos. It is, 
then, still left with the theologian to assume that this is 
but a part of omnipotence lying back of or above it in 
the divine Being. To our physical system God has 
assigned its fixed amount of force, sufficient to carry it 
on with all practical completeness, subject to all the 
interpositions his reserve omnipotence pleases. This 
would serve to explain the " course of nature," with all 
its completeness and incompleteness, its fixities and its 
accidentalities, its goods and its evils. The "plastic 
power" is omnipotence itself working under self-as- 
signed conditions of finite cause and effect. In every 
molecular movement the force requires omnipotence, and 
the directivity requires omniscience ; for without the 
omnipotence that force could not exist, and without the 
omniscience that directivity could not exist ; yet only 
so much force and so much intelligence is added as 
will accomplish the finite object — an infinitesimal drop 
from the infinite ocean. 



28 Statements : Theological and Critical. 



This completes our view of his argument in his Frag- 
ments of Science, but we have a point or two more to 
make. 

In this same Nineteenth Century the professor quotes 
the following words from Professor Knight, applauding 
them as " bold words to be spoken before the moral 
philosophy class of a Scotch university." We think 
they are as foolish as they are " bold : " " If matter is 
not eternal, its first emergence into being is a miracle 
beside which all others dwindle into absolute insignifi- 
cance. But it has often been pointed out that the 
process is unthinkable." But, we reply, the creation of 
matter is no more unthinkable than the eternity of mat- 
ter. Creation from nothing is just as valid a thought 
as eternity without beginning or end. And as we know 
eternity, however unthinkable, to be a valid reality, so 
the unthinkability of creation, if true, does not destroy 
the validity of creation. But neither is unthinkable, 
but only unpicturable. That is, we cannot shape them 
into a conceptual form, as we can a horse or a hand- 
saw, although they are valid to the higher reason. No 
more can we think into conceptual form Spirit, or Her- 
bert Spencer's "Unknown Absolute," or Professor Tyn- 
dall's " promise and potency in matter " for forming an 
intellective cosmos. Nothing transcending the senses 
can be mentally pictured. And this is so well-known a 
fact in philosophy that one is amazed at the persistence 
with which unthinkability, that is, unpictur ability, is 
assigned for rejecting creation. 

Mr. Tyndall assures us that he discerns a "promise 
and potency in poor despised matter" capable of evolv- 
ing all the phenomena of the world. So do we, Mr. 
Tyndall. And that "promise and potency" is the 
causa causarum, the immanent God, .who is in the mat- 
ter by him created, sustaining it in existence, endowing 



Theism. 



29 



it with powers, and carrying it through all its opera- 
tions. He is the soul of the world, the light of lights, 
the life of life, the inner substratum of all phenomena. 
And this answer, assumed as final, leaves to science all 
her investigations, her theories, and her systems. 

Superiority and Priority of Mind to Matter. 

On this general topic we jot the following suggestions: 

1. One of the most fundamental of all the maxims of 
both philosophy and theology is Plato's: Mind is prior 
to matter. Mind is superior and all comprehending; 
matter is good for nothing, and might just as well be 
so much vacant space but for its subserviency to mind. 
One monad of mind, if solely existing, would be worth a 
whole universe of matter alone. Hence, when the ma- 
terialist makes mind an appendage to matter, an acci- 
dent, or property, he commits a husteron-proteron, a cart 
before the horse, a prce-posterous proposition. 

2. Mind, as before all things, is the producer of all 
things. It is first cause, the source of causation. All 
power, all force, resides primally in mind; and all exer- 
tion of power, all eventuality, and all motion, come 
from mind. Mind is the source of motion. 

3. When the theologian, ages ago, declared that God 
is omnipotent, he asserted, previous to any philosophy, 
the indestructibility of force. He declared that the 
amount of force existing is always the same, namely, 
infinite. And there is no objection to saying that the 
amount of force measured out by the Almighty to our 
mundane creation is always the same, unless varied by 
miracle. The infinite mind, with infinite power, con- 
trols the universe. 

4. When the Materialist affirms that thought is a 
property of matter, we will assent if he will change a 
term and say, thought is a property or motion of sub- 



30 Statements : Theological and Critical. 

stance. For God is a personal substance; and so is 
spirit or mind. And >o we agree that thought is the 
motion or action of conscious mind or spirit. 

5. Has any physiologist, any embryologist, any mor- 
phologist, explained the minute molecular causations 
why the foetus in the human womb does not assume the 
shape of a lizard or tadpole ? Do any of the laws of 
chemistry or natural philosophy constitute, singly or 
collectively, a plastic power by which we can see how 
the specific human form is molded? We know that 
soul (of the parent) is a previous condition ; and on 
the principle that the foetus, patterned to a plan, is 
truly *' mind-molded," we may assume that the soul of 
the foetus really and truly shapes the body. Mind is 
prior to matter, and body is soul-shaped and soul-per- 
vaded. 

6. If mind or spirit is prior to matter and source of 
causation, mind is capable of impact and impulse upon 
matter. This we see demonstrated in the action of 
the will-power upon body and upon external objects. 
And mind is consciously susceptible to impact from 
matter, as is demonstrated from the phenomenon of 
sensation. Isaac Taylor calls corporeity a an amalgam 
of mind and matter;" and by that amalgam man is 
the contact point, the mediation, between the world of 
matter and the world of spirit. By this means thought 
appreciates a blow upon the body. So that conscious 
soul stands in correlation with both antecedent and sub- 
sequent material conditions. 

7. But the great point with our physicists is, that 
thought is now demonstrated to be one of the six con- 
vertibles of force or motion. Thought is a mode of 
motion. How, then, can there be an immortal soul? 
We reply: Thought is the motion of conscious spirit; 
of spirit capable of receiving impulse from, and com- 



Theism. 



31 



municating impulse to, matter in correlation with it. 

But the soul is, perhaps, immortal only in the conditions 
of immortality ; and eternally capable of spiritual mo- 
tion or thought only in the conditions of thought. We 
have no proof tliat, separate from body, spirit may 
not be eternally placed by God in the conditions of life 
and thought-motion. We have abundant proof that it 
is so placed. 

Like Maudesley and Louis Biichner, Professor Draper 
reprobates the exaltation of mind over matter. It is 
dismal to see their stale scraps reproduced to us as 
— science! They are simply a nescience, fabricated in 
the interests of Atheism. Can Dr. Draper tell us of 
what value matter is, tried by any conceivable standard, 
except as it is subservient to mind ? If a mass of mat- 
ter contributed in no respect whatever, mediate or im- 
mediate, to the welfare or pleasure of a sentient being, 
might it not just as well be so much pure space ? If 
immensity of space were completely tilled with matter, 
with not a spark of mind existent, would this infinity of 
matter possess any superiority over an infinity of pure 
space ? If in that immensity of matter there existed 
one intelligent being, capable of happiness and misery, 
would not that entire mass be valuable or worthless as 
it contributed to his happiness ? To all this there can 
be but One reasonable reply; and that reply declares that 
this doctrine of Biichner, Maudesley, and Draper is un- 
entitled to any man's moral or intellectual respect. 

The Design Argument. 

Professor Hicks, in his A Critique of Design Argu- 
ments, draws a separation in natural theology between 
the argument from Or der and the argument from De- 
sign, leaving to the latter alone the term Teleology, and 
for the former coining the new and euphonious term 



32 Statements: Theological and Critical. 



Eutaxiology. His main position is that order is a mark 
of intelligence, proved to be such by induction, dis- 
tinctly and independently of all thought of purpose or 
end. The theistic argument, then, is properly divided 
into two great co-ordinate departments — eutaxiology 
and teleology. He then brings each leading author to 
the test of having clearly distinguished the order argu- 
ment from the end argument. 

Mr. John S. Mill remarks: "The evidence of design 
in creation can never amount to more than to the infe- 
rior kind of inductive evidence called analogy. Anal- 
ogy agrees with induction in this — that they both argue 
that a thing known to resemble another in certain cir- 
cumstances (call those circumstances A and B) will re- 
semble it in another circumstance (call it 0). But the 
difference is, that in induction A and B are known, by 
a previous comparison of many instances, to be the 
very circumstances on which C depends, or with which 
it is in some way connected." 

We may reply to Mr. Mill's remark, that our knowl- 
edge of any " design " whatever in the universe, out- 
side our individual consciousness, is derived through 
this same analogy. I know " design " in my own mind 
by direct introverted perception; I know "design" 
in any other being, finite or infinite, only by inference. 
If I could walk into any other being's consciousness, 
whether human or divine, I could then and there di- 
rectly know design. But the real fact is, that while 
I see moving organisms around me, performing certain 
actions and emitting certain sounds, it is only by anal- 
ogy drawn from my own mind that I can guess that 
back of such actions and sounds there actually is a 
mind, and that those complex phenomena are the result 
of " design." And so it will be found that a large 
share of this writer's argument would prove for me 



Theism. 



33 



that there is no other " design," finite or infinite, except 
in the consciousness of my own individual I. In other 
words, the same sort of argument which proves human 
design proves divine design. 

To Paley's argument of design from the instance of 
the watch,. Hume replied in effect that we have seen a 
watch-maker make a watch, but never saw a world-ma- 
ke r make a world. But, in truth, no one ever saw the 
real watch-maker more than the world-maker. When 
we see a watch being made we only see one organism 
of matter moving under contact of another organism. 
But what really directs the latter organism in the mod- 
ifications of its contact upon the former so as to design 
and form the watch we never saw. From our knowl- 
edge of our own minds we infer that back of both or- 
ganisms there is a designing mind, and we have no con- 
ception how the watch can be so made without such 
designing mind. And so back of the world-making, 
we infer from our own minds that there is a designing 
mind, and we have no conception how the world can 
be made without such mind. It is a problem to be 
solved: How can a systematic cosmos be formed f The 
only solution human thought can furnish is : By a de- 
signing will. Paley's argument from the watch has 
been abundantly replied to, but never refuted. 

If the human frame with all its adaptations to a de- 
terminate end proves no plan, and no mind designing 
a plan, let us ask, then, what would prove such mind ? 
If the foot was not made to walk with, the hand to manip- 
ulate with, the eye to see with, then what proof would 
demonstrate a purpose in Nature ? If it were written 
in stupendous capitals upon the firmament, There is 
a. supreme creating God, that would prove nothing; 
for it is just as clear that the marks forming those let- 
ters might unite to form those words without design 
3 



34 Statements : Theological and Critical. 



as it is that the parts of the human frame might unite 
without design to form a man. If an angel, with a 
form towering to the skies, should stand on the earth 
at noonday clothed in glory, and with a voice louder 
than thunder, yet sweeter than the music of the spheres, 
should proclaim in the ear of all the inhabitants of the 
earth, There is a God, that would prove nothing; for 
all those visibilities and audibilities might just as easily 
combine without any significance or anterior purpose as 
a human eye could come into existence undesigned. In 
fine, the man who is not convinced by his own structure 
as a man, that there is a God, would not be convinced 
by any possible proof. 

If any person chooses to take the worst aspect of 
things, and hold it as the only aspect, there is such an 
aspect to be taken. The world may truly and scien- 
tifically be viewed as a great mud-ball, alternately baked 
and frozen, with various consistencies and shapes and 
hues of mud. And, then, all we animals, such as mam- 
moths, sharks, men, tadpoles, and cats, are so many mud- 
specks in a highly stimulated state. And then, all such 
transcendental ideas as religion— sanctity, sacredness, 
honor — are simply gotten up as conveniences and expe- 
diencies, having no valid connection with any thing 
above the mud. And as life is a mere stimulation of 
the mud-speck, so dea f h is a mere subsidence of the 
little mud-speck into the big mud-ball. If this is the 
whole significance of things, then truth, justice, virtue, 
purity, are phantasms. Even science is nothing more 
than a specially correct daguerreotype of the composi- 
tion of the mud-ball upon the stimulated surface or sen- 
sorium of the mud-speck. We say, if that is the ex- 
haustive solution of the problem, then the problem is 
not worth solution. All pretenses of building a moral 
system or a law of honor on such a base are sham. 



Theism. 



35 



Right is expediency. Lie is as holy as truth. And the 
age that embraces the atheistic hypothesis will surely 
so conclude, and will seek in brutal sensuality the only 
solace of a base and brief existence. 

The Doctrine of Design versus the Doctrine of Conditions. 

An essay by Martins on Organic Unity in Vegetables 
and Animals contains the following: "De Candolle 
said in his lectures, 'Birds fly because they have wings ; 
but a true naturalist would never say, "Birds have 
wings in order to fly.'" The distinction seems puer- 
ile ; it is really profound. In fact, the ostrich has wings 
which can never sustain him in the air, but which 
quicken his speed ; those of the casoer and the apterix 
of New Zealand are so little developed that they serve 
absolutely no purpose. These facts are the condemna- 
tion of final causes." From the fact that certain phe- 
nomena appear in nature, which plainly serve no pur- 
pose of utility, it is inferred that there is no design in 
creation at all ; that things are used because there are 
antecedent favorable conditions for use; but that use 
is not the end or pwpose for which any thing exists. 
" So the true naturalist will say that birds fly be- 
cause they have wings, but never birds have wings in 
order that they may fly." The result exists because of 
the conditions, never the conditions in order to the re- 
sult. Thus universally the doctrine of conditions sup- 
plants and abolishes the doctrine of design. It is not 
clear from Martins's quotation whether De Candolle 
intended to limit all reasoners by his maxim, or natural- 
ists, as such, only. If the latter, he was only stating the 
boundaries of natural science. It may indeed be true 
that such is the only maxim for the naturalist ; but that 
does not settle the question whether the thinker of a 
wider range may not accept both propositions, and say, 



36 Statements : Theological axd Celtic al. 



" Not only do birds fly because they have wings, but 
they have wings in order that they may fly." 

Our naturalist affords us in this essay a beautiful 
view of the structural system of living nature. One 
thing strikes us on a comprehensive glance at its whole. 
The principle of that system's plan, namely, the blend- 
ing of uniformity aud variety, is a contingent, not a 
necessary principle. It is not a system of organic neces- 
sity, originating like the steps of a geometric demon- 
stration, solely possible, self-existent, and ri>ing with a 
structure, in which every successive step results from 
the preceding. A system of uniformities with ad libitum 
variations is a system of a selective character, picked out 
of countless other supposably possible systems, formed 
with an outline and a coherent intellective plan, of 
which the principles are mtellectively delected, and are 
found to be perfectly in accordance with the laws of 
volitional thought. The only solution of their origin, 
then, since blind causational necessity is out of the ques- 
tion, is intelligent choice / and intelligent choice, present 
at and anterior to the selection of the plan, and com- 
prehending the whole, basing it on its actual principles. 

What are those principles ? The naturalist tells us 
in this article. They are " uniformity in type and variety 
in modification." This is the fundamental law, and the 
whole system of nature is its fulfillment. But what is 
the law T for ? It is for the purpose of regulating the 
actions of every part of the system, so as to produce 
its whole. What are the actions of its parts and parti- 
cles for ? To so obey the law as to complete its organic 
plan. What is the synthesis of law and actions for ? 
To produce the entire system. The very selection of 
the system, of its laws, and of the action of the ele- 
ments according to its laws, is inexplicable without the 
supposition of design. So far, then, from furnishing a 



Theism. 



37 



refutation of the law of design thus far, the whole 
scheme of the naturalist seems obliged to illustrate its 
existence. 

But how are these laws by us discovered ? By ob- 
serving the facts. But does not the same observation 
find out that the subserviences to use are quite as numer- 
ous as the " varieties in modification ? " Are there not 
infinite multiplicities of curious, wonderful, and use- 
serving action and operation attained at least by the 
way f The naturalist will tell us that he had nothing 
to do with these. We reply, then he had nothing to do 
with, and no right to say any thing about, the existence, 
or non-existence of the doctrine of ends. If he has 
nothing to do with this, others may belong to a broader 
and higher school ; and over-passing his limits, they 
may say that ice have something to do with them. 
They may claim to find uniformity in type, variety in 
modification, and both subservient to infinite varieties of 
use. 

This subserviency to use is no more to be destroyed 
by the existence of arrangements made to secure other 
principles, namely, the law sometimes of uniformity, 
sometimes of variety, than the fact of variety and uni- 
formity is destroyed by the myriads of subordinations 
to the law of use. The fact, at any rate, of subserviency 
to use is too universal and too overwhelming in amount, 
and too positive in its character and in its artistic com- 
plicated and converging combinations, to be possibly 
mistaken without a most perverse and inveterate pur- 
pose to be mistaken. But in the light of the remarks 
thus far made, let us survey the exceptions to .the law 
of use by w T hich Martins and De Candolle would over- 
throw its existence. 

That the useless nipple is given to man on the law 
of uniformity does not in the least contradict the fact 



88 Statements : Theological and Critical. 



that the breast is given to the woman for use, namely, 
for the purpose of nourishment ; a purpose without 
which the race cannot be preserved ; a purpose demon- 
strated by its pervading character for the female of a 
large genus of beings, for which it is necessary as a 
means of generic existence. That the useless wings of 
the apterix preserve the law of uniformity does not dis- 
prove that those of the eagle and the lark preserve the 
law of use. That the ox hooks because he has horns no- 
body denies ; but the fact that there are animals not so 
well provided does not in the least disprove the purpose 
of fulfilling the law of variety by making the ox an ag- 
gressive and self -defensive animal. There may be a 
variety of variations from the law of use without de- 
stroying that law, as well as from the law of uniformity 
of type without destroying that law. Each law may 
take its turn, and with due "variety" blend, even in 
the same case. 

There is in this matter a question which both these 
reasoners overlook. The true question is not, " Why do 
birds fly ? " but, How came this complicated, converging, 
and most exquisite adjustment of conditions by which 
birds are able to fly ? Nor does Mr. Darwin's " natural 
selection " at all aid us here ; for the question still recurs, 
How came this most complex and yet most complete 
intellective system, in which "natural selection " has its 
chances of effective work? " Natural selection " operates 
with wonderful success ; but it must possess as truly won- 
derful a synthesis of principles, a frame-work and sys- 
tem within which to work, as genius ever invented or art 
constructed. What is the solution to this so compli- 
cated yet so complete and structural a system ? 

It is a plain first principle of all reasoning that an 
immediate and ample solution of a problem should not be 
rejected in behalf of a more distant and less ample one; 



Theism. 



39 



still less for no other whatever. Of this complicated sys- 
tem we have a complete and ample solution, if it may but 
be even for a moment tried. The supposition, namely, of 
an anterior Intellect conceiving the plan, with an execu- 
tive Will adequate to its execution, does furnish all the 
conditions necessary for the solution of this question ; 
and there is not only no better, but there is positively 
no other whatever. And we might leave it for matter 
of reflection whether it is not intuitively certain that 
Mind such as, or at least analagous to, the mind which 
we are conscious ourselves of possessing, must not be 
the cause of plans, of a nature, so purely rational. 

Take, for instance, the human tongue, viewed as the 
organ of speech, and consider what an infinite number 
of adjustments of the most complex character must 
precede, in order to its being an articulate organ. 
And still farther back, consider its connection with the 
anterior physical frame of man ; then its adjustment 
to the ear not merely of the individual, but of all other 
individuals ; requiring another system to match of ex- 
quisite adjustments in the ear itself. Then consider the 
relation of both with sound ; and of sound with thought, 
in order to its adaptation to be the medium of communi- 
cating that thought from mind to mind. Escape if you 
can, without an abdication of common sense, the per- 
ceiving that the ear and the tongue are predictive of 
human intercourse, society, and a social system. Is it 
not most plain to every man's reason that all this can 
have no antecedent solution but the presupposition of 
an anterior potential Mind, a mind which understands 
mind, which designs design, which anticipates facts, 
society, history, and makes the most wonderful provis- 
ion for such results ? The man who comprehends all 
these innumerable and infinitesimal requisite complica- 
tions, and then says, " Men talk because they have lungs, 



40 Statements : Theological and Critical. 



throat, tongues, vocality, ears, and minds, all adjusted 
harmoniously and converging to this result," and 
refuses to admit that " these conditions are designedly 
combined in order that speech and the social system 
may exist," disuses his honest common-sense. 

We said that living nature is not like a geometric 
problem of Euclid, whose origin is in necessity, and 
whose every step follows in the whole structure with 
an intrinsic adamantine necessity. We will now say 
that it is like a parable of the divine Lord of nature 
and teacher from its phenomena— the blessed Jesus. 
These parables consist of a main outline designed for 
practical illustration, with voluntary finishings designed 
to complete the narrative or form a natural and touch- 
ing picture. Who would be such a fool as to say, 
" This parable has no meaning ; for look at that addi- 
tional and useless detail, which has no practical or i lus- 
trative application! " We would tell him that use is 
sometimes attained by the addition of something use- 
less — useless, that is, in the sense of not serving ihe 
immediate purpose, but more useful in the end just 
because it postpones the use. So the very , law of uni- 
formity in variety is not only an intelligential law, but 
it is a law of use ; and the whole system with its laws 
merges into a system of use. And thereupon the human 
mind will ever be impelled and authorized by its own 
imperative nature to ask of the whole the old question, 
" What is the end of God in creation ? " 

Naturalists are doubtless great men, and many of 
them are good men. It is due, we believe, to the scien- 
tific men of our country to say that the great body of 
them take ground against skepticism. American sci- 
ence is not irreligious. But naturalists are not lords of 
all discussion. And it is very arrogant for them first to 
exclude every consideration which does not belong to 



Theism. 



41 



their department, and then to issue a ukase to which ev- 
ery other department of the world of thought is expected 
to bow, requiring all to stop at their terminal point. 
It is very stupid for them to draw conclusions which 
may be good for them, but when broader considerations 
are adduced modifying the universality of their conclu- 
sions, to answer, " That does not belong to my depart- 
ment." The exclusive naturalist may never go beyond 
"birds fly because they have wings." The philosopher 
will say, " Birds fly because they have wings, and they 
have wings in order that they may fly." 

Design Shown in the Primordial Properties of Matter. 

The Atheism of the present day, assuming the eter- 
nity of the properties and laws of matter, claims that 
all the phenomena of our cosmos are explained without 
the need of an antecedent mind. Professor Cooke, in 
his Religion and Chemistry, shows that it is in the 
very sum total of these properties and laws that we 
must recognize plan; the existence of which can be 
solved by nothing but antecedent mind. And this 
touches upon the peculiar skeptical effect of the ex- 
clusive pursuit of natural science upon the scientific 
intellect. The scientist's task is to make his deductions 
solely from premises within the bounds of physical nat- 
ure. All thought of supernatural interposition is to be 
excluded. Nay, the assumption of supernatural causa- 
tion has so often led astray from true natural causation 
that he has often grown impatient of the thought of a 
supernatural, and even of a God. Now Professor 
Cooke's view well works a remedy for this impatience. 
It finds plan, design, mind, in the primordial endoioing 
of matter with its laws and properties, and thus secures 
the existence of primordial mind and yet leaves the sci- 
entist full range for his unobstructed deduction of nat- 



42 Statements: Theological and Critical. 



ural phenomena from natural causations. This by no 
means excludes the recognition of a design in the infi- 
nitely varied special adaptations in every part of nat- 
ure, but rather elucidates and confirms them. When 
we recognize design in the primordial we will readily 
see that all the specialties are provided for, and we have 
a grand view of the whole as a sublime unit. So that 
when we are sarcastically asked, Is india-rubber made 
for us to rub out pencil marks ? Are lamp-black and 
oil purposely endowed in order to make printer's ink? 
we reply very promptly, Yes. Divine prescience fore- 
knows the minutest needs of free agents, and divine 
predestination adjusts the properties of nature by apian 
which (as Pope says) 

" Binding nature fast in fate 
Lets free the human will." 

Mathematical Law and Design. 

Arithmetic and the higher mathesis have heretofore 
been generally supposed to have no relation to theology. 
But Dr. Hill ( Geometry and Faith), ranging through the 
higher walks of thought, discloses applications in nature 
of mathematical doctrine, which truly demonstrate the 
maxim of Plato, that " God geometrizes." The omnip- 
otent Creator was an omniscient mathematician. 

So far as the logical sequences of mathematics are in- 
trinsically necessary, they afford no theistic arguments; 
but it is in bringing things under the control of mathe- 
matical law that will and design reveal themselves. 
Among the varied exhibitions of this designed subjec- 
tion of nature to mathematical law (we have space for 
but one) are the phenomena of Phyllotaxis, or the, posi- 
tion of leaves on a tree. The problem being, so to ex- 
pose the leaves as to secure the best growth, science 
has found that they are ranged in a mathematical 



Theism. 



43 



order which secures the result; the principle of which 
was not discovered by mortals until A. D. 1845. Now, 
three things are here to be noted: first, that a result 
was evidently aimed at, showing design • second, deep 
mathematical principles were used, showing the pro- 
found intelligence from which the design issued; third, 
the arbitrarily selecting and imposing upon the system 
of leaves this mathematical plan, evincing intelligent 
will. The exhibition of these three things through all 
nature evinces the unity of the designing mind. But 
here comes a catch. The obedience of the phyllotaxis 
is not always exact. Tne law is often transgressed. 
Does not this refute the theistic argument ? Quite the 
reverse. The mathesis is so uniform as to demonstrate 
that it was fully understood, yet so dispensed with as to 
show that it could have been rejected, and so was vol- 
untarily adopted, And here opens a grand solution of 
the inexactnesses, the loosenesses, the evils in the world, 
all which, unquestionably, for some reason exist, but do 
not disprove that it is a mind-governed world. 

Nature of Space and Infinity. 

Martineau, the brilliant defender of theism in En- 
gland, has made the unfortunate concession to the 
scie?itists (rather than to any real science) that matter, 
as well as time and space, is increate and eternal. Dr. 
Cocker, in a former volume, admitted the uncreatabil- 
ity and eternity of time and space; but in view of Mar- 
tineau's unnecessary concession, he reverses the w T hole 
case, and affirms there is nothing increate but God, and 
time and space are by him caused. Our own view is 
that space is vacuity, absence of all occupant; that it is 
as truly extended as matter; is optically divisible into 
parts by imagined lines or walls, but is essentially indi- 
visible and infinite. And as being vacuity and true 



44 Statements: Theological and Critical. 



nonentity, that is, nothing, it is not the subject of crea- 
tion, and is the limitless back-condition of all occupancy 
by existence. It is that anterior inexistence which is 
logically necessary to all existence. 

Dr. Cocker amply affirms, in his The Theistic Concep- 
tion of the World, that between two objects, at a dis- 
tance from each other, with no object inte rvening, there 
is "pure empty space;" which he affirms is identical 
with nothing. Hence we have the equation space= 
nothing. From this starting-point let us take a glass 
pump, so perfect that it can be absolutely exhausted of 
every thing, leaving nothing but empty space=nothing. 
Now this space=nothing has extension as really as so 
much water; for it does extend from wall to wall, and 
from roof to floor, of the glass receiver. If Dr. Cocker 
here should arrest us and say, " Nonsense, how can non- 
entity have extension?" we reply, We cannot tell, 
dear doctor, but you see, that it has extension with your 
own eyes. And you yourself, on page 216, admit the 
possibility of ninety-two million miles of pure space= 
nothing. And if there may be ninety-two miles of 
space=nothing, then there may be half or quarter of 
that length; so that space, vacuity, nihility, nothing- 
ness, is divisible, measurable, and made up of parts. 
Now we may say that this extent of space within the 
walls of the receiver is a portion or part of general 
space, divided by the Avails from the outside space; and 
in that sense we may say that space is " divisible." Or 
we may say that you cannot cut a piece of space, as an 
ice-man cuts a cubic piece of ice from a large mass of 
ice, and remove it; and in that sense space is "indivis- 
ible." And this seems to solve that contradiction com- 
mitted by writers who affirm alternately, that space is 
" divisible " and "indivisible." If now you smash your 
glass receiver at a blow, you will remove the optical 



Theism. 



45 



division between the interior and exterior space=noth- 
ing. And if you in thought remove all limitations, you 
get, in necessary thought, unlimited space=nothing ; 
that is, you get immensity of space=nothing, in which 
saying we do not " confound immensity with space." 
And this immensity of space=nothing is to us the an- 
terior condition-thought, the absolute precedent to all 
positive existence. To say that it is "caused," or 
made or created, as other philosophers affirm, is as ab- 
surd to our thought as the idea of its being annihilated 
is to Dr. Cocker. 

A philosophy like Kant's and Lotze's, that denies the 
reality of space, a reality that is, which is valid, whether 
there exists mind or not, does to our view lie in a hope- 
less reductio ad absurdum. We hold that any philoso- 
phy that abuts against the objective reality of space is 
at once demolished. Kant and Lotze hold space to be 
created by mind; and Kant maintains that it is simply 
a mind-formed condition of sensible objects. " We 
cannot," he says, " perceive or conceive an object but 
in space." What authority, then, have we for believing 
the reality of the object any more than the reality of 
space? They are both equally authenticated by the 
same affirming mind. We do see space. I see the 
space around my table just as clearly and certainly as I 
see the table itself. I see the space in an empty pail 
just as truly as I see the water that anon fills it. And 
so far as my perceptions are concerned, space is as gen- 
uine an object of perception as the water or the pail. 
And yet you recognize that the space in the empty 
pail is vacuity, a pure absence of positive existence, a 
room for occupancy. That visible, real, actual empti- 
ness—perhaps a painful reality — you call indifferently 
space or nothing. So that space=nothing. In the pail 
you see a circular nothing six inches in diameter and 



•16 Statements: Theological and Critical. 



one foot deep. It is a spacial cylinder, just as real as 
any iron cylinder. And so space=nonentity=vacuity 
=110 thing is extended, measured, and shaped, just as 
truly as matter. But it is not movable and literally 
divisible like matter. Annihilate the pail and you at 
once see that the division and limitation were imagi- 
nary. Matter may be cut in two and the parts removed, 
but not space. Matter may be viewed as transient, 
vanishing, and non-existent, but not space. Matter we 
may view as created and then annihilated, but space is 
uncreatable and unannihilable. For how can nothing 
be created ? How can extended vacuity, absence of all 
positive existence, be generated, destroyed, or depend- 
ent for its reality on any thing finite or infinite ? John 
Stuart Mill defines matter as " the permanent possibility 
of a sensation." We might define space as the perma- 
nent possibility of an occupancy. We know that it is 
limitless; for, assume any limit, and space is beyond it. 
And so immensity of space and eternity of time are 
among the most primitive, indestructible, and certain of 
all thoughts. And when we see our stalwart philoso- 
phers so bravely take immensity of space and twist and 
tie it into a knot, as a western hunter crumples a piece 
of brown paper into a wad; and when they thrust im- 
mensity of space into their twistified theories, as the 
hunter rams the wad into his musket, we are over- 
whelmed with admiration at the dexterity of their 
manipulations. 

And what shall be said of Kant's famous battle of 
the Antinomies ? In order to show that, when we get 
up into the supersensible regions, we are involved in 
contradictions that warn us down, he takes four sets of 
supersensible propositions and opposes them like con- 
tradictory batteries against each other. It is the battle 
between the phenomena and the noumena, in which 



Theism. 



47 



they with great precision annihilate each other, and 
thereby settle their feud. His first antinomy seems 10 
be based on the ambiguity of a term. If there be a 
word in language expressive of a transcendent reality, 
in which all mind agrees, it is Eternity. Yet this 
word, we are instructed, contradicts itself. There is an 
eternity of the past which has terminus at the present 
moment; so that we have an infinite chopped off at one 
end! Then there is a future eternity; so that we have 
an infinite clipped at the other end ! And when both 
are tied together we have an absolute Infinity. Now, 
if we will not be governed and cheated by words,'we 
may see that there is here no contradiction in the con- 
ception. A geometrician finds it perfectly legitimate 
to say, " Let this line A B be produced from B to in- 
finity;" that is, without a further end. And that is a 
perfectly legitimate conception — a line with a beginning 
and no ending. And in our thinking of that line two 
valid conceptions arise. We may either think the line 
ever approaching yet never reaching infinity, in which 
the element of time and motion is blended with linear 
form; or we may view the line as now infinitely com- 
plete, an endless line. And so man's immortality em- 
braces the conception of a commencement and contin- 
uance without end. We speak of a monument to be 
raised and to stand forever. Men have generally be- 
lieved in a creation never to be annihilated. So, also, 
there .may be conceived a line with no beginning, yet 
an end. Applied to time, we might call one prae-eter- 
nity and the other post-eternity, and both valid concep- 
tions. And then, if we call the whole eternity, we may 
see that there are three harmonious valid conceptions 
distinguished by their three names, and all without con- 
tradiction. The other antinomies of Kant are, we think, 
no more valid. 



48 Statements : Theological and Critical. 



The Infinity of a Being does not Exclude Personality or Intelli- 
gence. 

The agnostic philosophers of the present day, as Her- 
bert Spencer, affirm that the human mind cannot attrib- 
ute intelligence, personality, to an infinite Being. The 
two ideas, personality and infinity, are so incompatible 
that thought cannot combine them in unity. Now, we 
would like to see that affirmation brought to a closer 
issue and a manly repudiation. It is a question of psy- 
chological fact, to be decided by consciousness, and to 
our own consciousness is the appeal to be made. When, 
then, for instance, Mr. Spencer tells us that he cannot 
combine the two thoughts in the same subject, we, of 
course, in courtesy concede him the mental impotence 
he claims. But when he grows aggressive, and tells me 
that I cannot, I am entitled to reply that I know by the 
conclusive evidence of consciousness that affirmation to 
be a falsity. I can, without the slightest mental diffi- 
culty, think the conception of an infinite, perfectly pow- 
erful, and perfectly wise, One. I can think it much 
more perfectly than I can most finites ; as, for instance, 
such a finite being as Mr. Spencer himself, especially 
such a Spencer as he here presents himself, a man of great 
intellect who cannot conceive of an intelligent Omnip- 
otent. Such a divine conception we psychologically 
possessed for many years before we ever thought out 
this eminent philosopher ; and we cannot now be per- 
suaded that our mind is truly vacant of that composite 
idea. And, next, having answered for ourselves indi- 
vidually, we hesitate not to appeal to our readers or 
our hearers for the testimony of their consciousness. 
Can you not conceive the unity of an infinite Being, 
perfectly potent and perfectly sapient, just as easily as 
you can conceive an ocean extending from pole to pole, 



Theism. 



49 



or a luminiferous ether bathing the worlds in light, or 
a gravitation holding the spheres in harmonious roll ? 
And, then, extending the range of our interrogation, we 
ask the Christendom of eighteen centuries : Have you 
the conception of an infinite, all-wise, omnipotent God ? 
We put the question to an older Judaism and to a 
younger Mohammedanism, and from this whole wide 
jury of the human intellect we know what responsive 
verdict we obtain. It is, then, too late in the day for 
our accomplished philosopher to tell us that an all-wise 
Omnipotence is " unthinkable " by the human mind. 
The statement is historically a falsehood, philosophic- 
ally a " pseud-idea." 

In his chapter on Personality and the Infinite the 
professor aims to connect and endow the Deity, thus 
far evinced by the design argument, with absolute 
infinity. This aim is, we think, rather in the interest 
of metaphysics than of religion. Practically we need 
trouble our faith with the question, whether the God 
whose wisdom reigns through the known universe is 
metaphysically infinite, as little as the astronomer troub- 
les himself with the question whether gravitation ex- 
tends its lines to a metaphysically infinite length. Nor 
do we see that Professor Diman attains a metaphysical 
certainty on that point. The most that we can say is, 
that if these metaphysical attributes have a true valid- 
ity and belong to some being, there is no other known 
candidate for that crown than the Deity of the design 
argument. The nomination of any other aspirant is 
illegitimate. 

Who made God] 

We have never been able to understand why theo- 
logians have averred that the existence of a Supreme 
Deity could not be discovered by the reason of man. 
It seems to us an appalling concession to Atheism. The 
4 



50 Statements : Theological and Critical. 



steps by which the discovery is supposably attained are 
short, few, and obvious. The child asks, Who made 
me ? Who made every thing ? Who made the world ? 
And the child can understand the mother's answer. 
The positive elements of natural theology are often 
learned in five minutes at five years of age. Compare 
this simple process with the discoveries in geometry, 
made beyond all doubt by natural human reason. Think 
of the numerous recondite steps to be taken by a ma- 
tured mind before attaining the mastery of the forty- 
seventh of Euclid's First Book. The ignorance of the 
savage tribes of the earth of the existence of a God, 
admitting the fact, no more proves his existence undis- 
coverable by the human mind, than it proves that un- 
aided man could not produce a school arithmetic. 

The Spiritual Monotheism of the Old Testament. 

A Westminster reviewer's truthfulness is illustrated 
by the following passage: "For the sons of Zebedee, 
as for the Psalmist of an age long past, the earth was 
a fiat plane of very moderate compass, with a solid 
heaven separating the waters above the firmament from 
the waters beneath it, while in this concave vault of 
crystal the sun and moon moved from one side to the 
other, and in it the stars were fixed like jewels on the 
diadem of a king. . . . On the solid heaven sat the 
Great Lord of all, and bowing his throne touched the 
mountains and made them smoke." 

This is in keeping with the coarse, old-fashioned infi-. 
delity, before the art was learned, so skillfully practiced 
by the politer skepticism of the present day, of eulo- 
gizing Jesus to death as Judas kissed him unto death. 
We used to see a picture of " Jehovah the Jewish idol," 
made up of an engraved combination of all the anthro- 
pomorphic phrases found in Hebrew poetry, forming, 



Theism. 



51 



of course, an image as incongruous as the monster with 
which Horace opens his De arte poetica. Yet the man 
wants sense or candor who will deny that the mainte- 
nance of a pure spiritual supreme monotheism was the 
conscious mission of the Old Testament. " In the be- 
ginning God," is its very first announcement; God, the 
creator of the heavens and the earth. This God had 
no form, but was symbolized to Israel by the cloudy, 
fiery pillar. No similitude of him appeared at Mount 
Sinai, and so the decalogue forbids all shaping of im- 
ages. No shape appeared upon the ark of the cove- 
nant in the most holy. When the temple was built 
God's presence appeared only in luminous clouds; Sol- 
omon declared that " the heaven of heavens could not 
contain " him ; and when Pompey, after conquering Je- 
rusalem, went behind the vail to examine the statuary, 
he found with amazement — nothing. How far abso- 
lute metaphysical immensity of space and absolute 
divine omnipresence were distinctly conceived by the 
ancient mind, is not the present question. Just so far, 
at any rate, as a universe was conceived, a spiritual 
deity was conceived, amply competent to embrace, per- 
vade, and control it. Such was the literal theologio 
and philosophic view taken by the Old Testament 
mind; and yet in full consistency with this it freely 
dealt with anthropomorphic phrases and conceptions, 
just as the most ideal of Berkleyan philosophers, who 
deny all external existences, have no difficulty of talk- 
ing as staidly about " hard matter " and " solid granite " 
as the most dogmatical realist. 

Pantheism. 

The Moses of the late great pantheistic dispensation 
was that wonderful Jew", Baruch Spinoza. When the 
slumbers of Europe, under the opiates of tradition and 



52 Statements: Theological and Critical. 



authority, were first breaking in the seventeenth cent- 
ury, one of the earliest wakers and awakeners of oth- 
ers was Descartes. The clear eye of Descartes plainly 
saw that truth and falsehood were terribly mixed in 
the public beliefs, and that a separation was an abso- 
lute necessity. His instrument for working this sep- 
aration was this postulate : Reject every thing as false 
of which a doubt can be entertained, and what you will 
have left will be pure certainty. He then began, in his 
own mind, with a clean slate, first blanking his mind 
of every belief, and then admitting every belief, one 
by one, bearing the certificate of absolute indubitabil- 
ity. His first step was to argue his own existence from 
his own consciousness — I think, therefore lam. At this 
very first step, however, Baruch arrests him under the 
authority of his postulate, and says, Consciousness only 
gives the think, but does not give any I. We are thus 
forever shut up into consciousness; all things exist only 
in mind. Sensations, perceptions, by which outside 
things were heretofore supposed to be known, are only 
modifications of mind, and of any thing outside of mind 
we can know nothing. The outer world, God, all, alike 
exist only in the ego. Transition is then made to the 
assumption — we say not how logically — that the All is 
one great JEr/o, of which my consciousness is but a little 
phenomenon ; and all consciousnesses are 

Diverse like the billows, but one like the sea. 

One would think, however, that the true result would 
be for my consciousness to assert its own single and sole 
existence. If what we call God and nature exist not at 
all externally, but as modifications of my mind, how is 
it that man or men, outside of myself, with their imag- 
ined consciousness, have any real external existence ? 
Every other man's consciousness is but a modification 



Theism. 



53 



of my consciousness, and so has no real existence. The 
logic that thus destroys the personal existence of God 
destroys the personal existence of every individual man 
— but myself. 

The history of pantheistic thought from Spinoza, in- 
terrupted by the sense-systems of Locke, exaggerated 
by the sensualism of Condillac, reappeared as an exag- 
geration of Kantianism by Fichte and Schelling, next, 
in its esthetic form by Goethe, and its hero-worshiping 
spasms in Carlyle, and last, its self-idolatry in Emerson. 
Its abolition of the true God, and substitution of a 
spontaneous Nature in his stead, are a main source of 
our present moral enervation and the prevalence of sen- 
suality and violence. That natural spontaneity legiti- 
matizes every impulse, consecrates every lust, and au- 
thorizes every crime as the true acting out of the divinity 
of nature. Away with the obsolete distinctions of right 
and wrong, abolish law, let nature unfold herself in her 
true freedom. Free love, free religion, free appropria- 
tion of all available funds, and free use of the pistol 
and the dagger are the practical outflow of this godless 
philosophy. This base prostitution of the word free is 
precipitating us into anarchy — the too-sure prelude to 
subsequent despotism. It is Christianity alone, with 
her God of holiness, in, yet above nature, her stern moral 
law vindicated by the sanctions of eternal retribution, 
and her great renovating agencies, which, stands as the 
only hope of the age. 

Pantheism is the identification of God with nature. 
There is no deity but cosmos. Of that infinite One 
every thing is a part and every event is an unfolding. 
As well the chair on which you sit, and the knife where- 
with you sharpen your pencil, are God, as the stars by 
night or the sun by day. It is not simpiy that God is 
ix these ; for that is simply affirming the omnipresent 



54 Statements: Theological and Ceitical. 



efficiency of God: it means that he is these. When 
Pope affirms that God- 

"Warms in the sun, refreshes in the breeze, 
Glows in the stars, and blossoms in the trees," 

we have a beautiful expression of an omnipresent om- 
nipotence. But when Emerson says, 

"He is the axis of the star, 

He is the sparkle of the spar," , 

the true pantheistic fetichism is naked before us. We 
thence know that not only the " axis of the star," but 
the axle-tree of a butcher's cart, and the blade of a 
boy's jack-knife, are all Emerson's god. If then real 
worship is to be performed, the African's "mumbo- 
jumbo" is its true object. 

Now Theism, " the popular theism," the theism of the 
Bible and of the great body of Christian thought, teaches 
the omnipresence and the perfect immanence of God — 
God " all in all." It does believe that God is also 
" outside " of matter ; for as matter is finite and God 
infinite, God does stretch infinitely beyond the limits 
of matter, as the ocean stretches immensely beyond the 
little islet it embosoms. What truth or propriety is 
there in. Dr. Hedge's denying that our Theism teaches 
the all-pervading, indwelling presence of God in nat- 
ure? Pantheism teaches, as Theism does, not only 
God's immanence in matter, but it teaches, as Theism 
does not, God's identity with matter. Largely the God 
of Pantheism is made up of oxygen gas. The difference 
between Theism and Pantheism is this : Theism teaches 
the immanence of God in matter and the immanence of 
matter in God, yet the infinite distinctness in essence 
between matter and God, and the infinite omnipresence 
of God " without " and beyond the limits of matter. 
Pantheism teaches the identity of substance, both bod- 



Theism. 



55 



ily and spiritual, of God with that of every finite object, 
whether inanimate, as a rock, or animate, as a cat. We 
agree with Max Miiller that the primitive creed was 
Theism. Hence men first apostatized, as in Egypt, to 
Pantheism, and thence, by strict logical sequence, to 
fetich ism. Rigidly and rightly inferring from her 
premises that every animal was a manifestation and 
a part of God, Egypt believed that the animal is to be 
worshiped. Certainly it is absolutely impossible for 
a Pantheist to worship his entire God without includ- 
ing in that worship swamps, rocks, cats, dogs, croco- 
diles, murderers, and prostitutes. Corporeally and spir- 
itually the prostitute is the Pantheist's god. And it is by 
this route that the great share of licentious idolatry in 
Egypt, Babylon, and various parts of the world was 
attained. Against all these logical and historical re- 
sults Christianity protests ; and by her pure Theism 
she is able to maintain that sublime ideal of absolute 
holiness which every other religion obscuring lets the 
human race down into sin and death. Maintaining 
the infinite distinctness of God from matter, she sep- 
arates God from all community with the sins of the 
flesh ; maintaining the distinctness of God from the 
finite free-agent, she separates him from all the sins of 
the spirit and the will. She enthrones him as the omni- 
present God, the absolutely holy God, before whom can 
be no allowance for sin. 

Buddhism. 

Are the Buddhists atheists ? A startling fact, if a 
fact. For the Buddhists are the most numerous sect 
of religionists in the world ; and if they are atheists, 
the reality of an atheistical religion presents itself as a 
concrete fact. But, in truth, Buddhism abounds in 
"gods many and lords many." Buddha or Gotama 



56 



Statements : Theological and Critical. 



himself is not only a man, but a god of most stupen- 
dous attributes, far above the Greek Jupiter, through a 
marvelous apotheosis. The assertion that all tribes be- 
lieve in gods, and so are not atheistic, does not mean 
that they believe in the true God of Christian Theism ; 
but that they hold to supernatural beings, to whom they 
stand in definite relations. Both the Buddhist and the 
Greek polytheism seem to imply the probable cessation 
of the existence of their pantheon in some far future 
age ; and for successional gods after that cessation no 
provision had been thought out. Yet free room was 
left for the provision when the time comes, so that even 
here there is no real atheism. But does not Buddhism 
affirm the doctrine of final annihilation, and, indeed, the 
utmost desirableness of annihilation ? And does not 
such a doctrine upset all our claims of men's intui- 
tive thirst for and hope of immortality ? It cannot be 
doubted that the eloquent Gotama in his day taught 
that existence is an evil, and that the highest desirable 
attainment is to be released from it by utter nothing- 
ness. And, strange to say, he prescribed, as condition 
of this attainment, the most absolute saintly purity of 
life and character. All human things are illusion ; are 
lie, cheat, and misery. Withdraw all desire for, or at- 
tachment to, them. Live out of, pure from, and above, 
all existing things ; and the reward shall be that you 
will sink into quietude and finally fade into nothingness. 
Such are the contradictions of our nature. Paul preached 
the consummation of well-doing to be glory, honor, im- 
mortality, and eternal life ; Buddha preached it to be 
the bottomless pit of non-existence ! What is the solu- 
tion of this strange antithesis ? We answer, we suppose 
that Buddha unaccountably overlooked the truth that 
misery does not consist in existence purely, but in the 
wretched conditions of our present existence. He did not 



Theism. 



57 



entertain the conception that existence might be the basis 
of a blessedness and a glory well worthy of our highest 
desire. Paul freely admitted the illusiveness and misery 
of our existence. Very often in terms sounding very 
like (with a difference) a strain from India, he paints 
the woe of the groaning creation subject to vanity. 
But, unlike Buddha, he limits the picture to our earthly 
present and points to a renovation. Gotama ascribed 
illusion to all existence, and put his followers in the 
mental condition of the suicide who hopes to plunge 
through death into nothingness. This proves not that 
the love of life and immortality are not instinctive, but 
that our instinctive feelings may be overcome by coun- 
ter mental forces. They are not extinguished, but over- 
whelmed. And this truth is illustrated by the fact that 
popular Buddhism stops just a little short of annihila- 
tionism, and is delightfully contented with a sweet 
repose — a soft long nap — just on its brink. Pure anni- 
hilationism is a high Buddhist ultraism. It reminds us 
of the sublime Calvinistic ultraism of Dr. Hopkins, who* 
taught that justifying faith included a willingness to be 
damned to hell forever for the glory of God. This 
was a grand contradiction to our inborn instincts. But 
then it was this very willingness that saved from the 
dire result. The convicted sinner would then be will- 
ing just because he was unwilling — a very pretty kink. 
Thus do instincts elude and conquer dogmas. But the 
atheist and materialist cannot safely quote Buddhism in 
dispute of the great truth that man is truly a supernat- 
uralistic being, predisposed to the hope of immortality. 



58 Statements : Theological and Critical. 



ANTHROPOLOGY. 
Difference between Physical Force and Formative Life-power. 

Dr. Gull maintains that life, or the thought-power, 
is but one of the forms of force, convertible with heat, 
electricity, motion, etc. Dr. Beale's replies are mainly 
two. First, experiment has never been able to trans- 
form force into life ; and, second, the properties of force 
and life are so different that the entities cannot be iden- 
tified. 

The following is his decision as to the experimental 
proof : " Notwithstanding all that has been asserted to 
the contrary, not one vital action has yet been accounted 
for by physics and chemistry. The assertion that life 
is correlated force rests upon assertion alone, and we 
are just as far from an explanation of vital phenomena 
by force hypotheses as we were before the discovery of 
the doctrine of tlie correlation of the physical forces. 
In short, this most important discovery in physics does 
not affect the question of the nature of the phenomena 
peculiar to living beings." 

On the difference between Vital Power and Force : 
"The relation between vital power and the ordinary 
forces of matter may not be more intimate than the re- 
lation between the man who makes a water-mill and the 
forces which raise the water that drives the wheel, or 
the materials of which the mill is constructed. And 
yet the water-mill could not have been made by the 
water, nor by the wood or iron which in part consti- 
tute the mill, nor by the mighty forces imprisoned in 
these materials. The man, not the forces of the matter 
or of the water, constructs the mill. Where, then, is the 
evidence that justifies Dr. Gull, and those whom he fol- 
lows, in asserting that any form or mode of ordinary 



Anthropology. 



59 



force has constructive power ? Force is mighty, force 
is powerful, and force may be destructive / but what 
evidence can be adduced in favor of the constructive 
agency of any mode of force ? Can any or all the 
forms of force yet discovered construct an insignifi- 
cant monad any more than they can make an um- 
brella or build a house ? Dr. Gull neither notices the 
objections which have been raised to the view con- 
cerning the forming, building, and constructing powers 
of force, nor adduces one new fact or argument in its 
support. 1 ' 

Herbert Spencer builds his great structure of biology 
(or life-science) in order to show that the entire system 
of living beings has arisen by purely unguided, unintel- 
ligent natural forces; so that neither God nor planning 
mind was needed to evolve the wonderful result. His 
greatest difficulty, of course, is at the point where forms 
of life are molded into intellective shapes. But the 
crystal is his grand transition stepping-stone. The 
crystal does form into symmetrical shapes, it grows; 
just as animal bodies form into symmetrical shapes, and 
grow. The difference is in the different degree of com- 
plexity. All this, however, fails to meet the case. The 
crystal forms to stiff mathematical shapes, such as unin- 
telligent forces by mutual interaction may produce. 
They may be, like chemical compounds, the rigid results 
of rectilinear affinities and repulsions, requiring no con- 
tingent guidance. But life-forms are intellectively va- 
ried. They are varied in plans, and selected modes and 
models. What selective power distributes the particles 
of matter so as to form the beauty of a maiden's cheek, 
and the varied styles of beauty of a thousand different 
faces? These are molded, fashioned, esthetically and 
artistically planned, and no science has as yet made the 
first successful step toward showing how they can be 



60 Statements : Theological and Critical. 



otherwise than mind-molded. Force, motion, electric- 
ity, can do nothing here. 

One grand distinction of living beings is heredity. 
Every species is a secret society; and the secret by it 
possessed is its vital formative power ', by which a given 
form of living being produces another form of living 
being of its own order. Crystals do not beget crystals; 
minerals are not born from minerals. And living be- 
ings are as unique in death as in birth. " The crystal- 
line matter can be redissolved, and will crystallize again 
as many times as we like, but the monad matter cannot 
be redissolved and reformified, any more than a dog or 
a man can be dissolved and then produced again from 
the solution. Neither man, nor any living thing, nor 
any kind of living matter, can be dissolved, for that 
which lives is incapable of solution. It may be killed, 
and then some of the products resulting from its death 
may be dissolved, but this is a very different thing from 
dissolving the living matter. Nor can the lifeless sub- 
stances which are dissolved ever be made to assume 
again the form and character they once possessed. Nor 
under any circumstances can the living thing, once 
dead, be made to live again, even if no attempts what- 
ever be made to effect its solution." 

Contrast between Mind-power and Matter-force — Grant and Granite. 

Our materialistic, or, as, they prefer to be called, 
" monistic," brethren are very anxious to prove that 
all mind-power is identified with matter-force. Their 
maxim is, as propounded by Biichner and adopted by 
Bain, "there is no force without matter and no mat- 
ter without force," which is a very forcible, though, as 
we view it, false antithesis. But the non-identity and 
absolute contrariety between mind-power and matter- 
force, or, as we will call them, psychological power and 



Anthropology. 



61 



physical force, we attempt to demonstrate in the fol- 
lowing manner : 

General Grant is in command of one hundred thou- 
sand men. This one hundred thousand men, with an 
individual weight, each man of one hundred and fifty 
pounds, possesses a weight of fifteen million pounds 
avoirdupois. And as their weight is equal to a solid 
block of granite of that same specific gravity, we 
will, by way of clearness, call them a block of solid 
granite. Now the problem is how to move this solid 
block of granite weighing fifteen million pounds by 
an antecedent which is not a physical force. It is 
a case of Grant versus granite, and the process is as 
follows: 

General Grant is sitting in his big tent with a map 
before him, looking very demure. He slowly comes in 
his cogitations to a mental conclusion / he forms next 
a distinct mental conception that the block must move, 
and he ends with a volition that it shall move; which 
presuppose three psychological processes. He then or- 
ders his aid-de-camp to deliver his commands to his 
generals. In a few hours the granite block of fifteen 
millions avoirdupois is moved to a position five miles 
distant. Now by what commensurate physical force 
was the block moved ? The only antecedent was Gen- 
eral Grant's volition (passing through the intelligence 
and wills of a few of his officers) to effectuate the 
movement. Leaving out the intermediates, General 
Grant's mere volition moved a block of granite weigh- 
ing millions. Here, then, was a stupendous psycholog- 
ical causation producing an immense material move- 
ment. Had the block been moved by a physical 
machine, what a vast apparatus would have been nec- 
essary ! Solid matter, then, to an extent without assign- 
able limit, may be necessitated to obey a purely psycho- 



62 Statements : Theological and Critical. 



logical causation. There is a mind-force which is not 
a matter-force and yet controls matter. 

In General Grant's brain there was, indeed, a slight 
molecular movement, implying an infinitesimal amount 
of physical force. In his act of speaking, also, there 
was exerted by the volition a small amount of corpo- 
real force. Upon the tympany of the ear of his aid 
there was a slight physical impulse produced by the 
articulate sound which was the vehicle of the idea. 
None of these minute forces, however, are, as physical 
forces, of any account in the moving of the block. These 
slight forces passing from tongue to tympanum are 
merely the carriers of the non-material idea. And that 
non-material idea it is, followed by the series of equally 
non-material volitions, conducted by these carriers, 
which moves this block of fifteen millions. 

Physical force, we are told, may be stored, as in fact 
it is, in the coal mine. But no force of fifteen mill- 
ion pounds was stored in the white matter of General 
Grant's brain. In his brain there is only that modi- 
cum of force sufficient for the molecular action co- 
ordinate with the thought action. The precise antece- 
dent, therefore, of the movement of this fifteen million 
avoirdupois is a psychological causality, namely, a men- 
tal volition. The stupendous physical movement was 
the precise result of a purely psychological causality, 
in total absence of any physical force. It is a psycho- 
logical power producing an enormous physical effect. 
Does not this plain fact demonstrate forever the abso- 
lute difference between mind-power and physical force, 
and the ordinary subordination of the latter to the 
former ? 

Let us now look into the mind of each individual 
soldier as he starts in this movement. First, his tym- 
panum is affected by an articulate vocality which is 



Anthropology. 



63 



the vehicle of a thought mentally received. That 
thought is then formed by him into a distinct mental 
conception of what he is to do, and that conception is 
succeeded by a mental volition. Thus far the causa- 
tion process is purely mental, Avith only enough of the 
physical conditions to furnish vehicles for the succes- 
sions of mental causation. But now comes a physical 
phenomenon. A mass of matter weighing one hundred 
and fifty pounds, namely, one human body, is moved in 
immediate consequence of that volition, in strict obedi- 
ence to it, and in absolute and pure causation by it. 
And thus a train of purely psychological causations, 
passing from General Grant's mind, through the minds 
of the officers, to the minds of the soldiers, produces 
a physical phenomenon as great as a small earthquake. 
From this we deduce these corollaries: 

1. That mind-power is in essence entirely another 
tiling from physical force; and so mind is probably an 
entirely different essence from matter. 

2. That matter receives from mind-power a compul- 
sion to obedient motion, and is by it moved and shaped. 
A material substance is controlled by a spiritual agent. 

3. This fully agrees with the maxim in zoology, that 
it is life or mind which constitutes and shapes organi- 
zation, and not organization life or mind. 

4. The conception of this primordial origination and 
supremacy of mind-power over physical force and sub- 
stance has no definite limits. The universal amount 
of physical organization is doubtless produced by an 
anterior amount of mind- power. The whole world- 
system is mind-created. 

5. When we say Ego, and our mind falls inward and 
back upon our self, we are right in identifying that Ego 
as something back of and superior to the bodily frame, 
to the brain, or to the nerves. There is the spirit dis- 



64 Statements : Theological and Critical. 



tinct from the body, organizing and using the body as 
its machine. 

6. The spirit ruling the body, yet conditioned by it, 
rightly feels its own analogy with the supreme Spirit 
which rules the body of the Cosmos. 

7. It is out of reason to suppose that between us and 
the supreme Spirit there are no intermediate intelli- 
gences. Science may know nothing of them, yet truth 
and reason may. How improbable that our five little 
senses can take in all there is ! Were we endowed with 
a new sense as comprehensive as our sight, what a world 
of new existences would it uncover, not contradicting 
any now known truth, but opening a vast addition in 
conformity with it. Hence common sense rejects the 
narrowness of materialism. 

Heat in Brain Action no Proof that Mind is Force. 

Philosophy asserts the supremacy, universal and eter- 
nal, of mind over matter. Were the universe filled 
with a boundless ocean of pure, even dead, physical 
force, it could never stir without directive mind to dif- 
ferentiate and define its movements. Force could never 
move force ; but mind, without being force, and with- 
out exerting force, is the evidence of something supe- 
rior to force, power — power to control force. We know 
from our conscious experience that mind, will, does con- 
trol matter organized into obedience to it, and nowhere 
do we see mind but it sits enthroned over matter. In 
the brain, as in the universe, mind is lord and master. 
And in the factors, mind and brain co-operating, we 
can easily see the refutation of the assumption of nil 
aspirants for materialistic glory, that because the acting 
brain under mental emotion gives out heat, therefore 
mind is but one of the circle of correlated forces. In or- 
der for the brain to act, it must have and exert physical 



Anthropology. 



65 



force, and until exact measurement shows the contrary, 
this molecular central action accounts for all the heat. 
Even in common parlance there must be brain strength 
for brain action. The brain can no more work under 
mental direction without force, than the legs; and there 
is no more wonder that heat comes from the brain in 
thinking than from the legs in walking. 

The Spiritual versus the Material Thought-Tablet. 

In the realm of thought Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes 
finds us inextricably fixed in the mechanical, if not even 
in the materialistically mechanical ; it is in the realm of 
morals, that is, of responsibility and will alone, that he 
finds us redeemed from the imprisonment of automa- 
tism. Through his entire treatment of the most serious 
subject he endeavors to infuse a sprightliness — which 
is itself a little sad, a true ludibrium flebile — required 
in his estimation by spoken address. 

Cautioning his timid hearers against identifying a 
free statement of the important part played by our cer- 
ebral machine with a maintenance of materialism, Dr. 
Holmes runs rapidly yet effectively over the state of 
the debate between the claims of the cerebral organism 
and the pure spirit (if such there be) in the intellective 
processes. First, he finds a large body of facts confirm- 
ing the doctrine of so-called " unconscious cerebration " ; 
that is, of the performance of thought processes by the 
brain, independently of will or consciousness. He does 
not clearly distinguish whether in the process the brain 
does actually think of itself, or whether it evolves the 
process through, like a wooden calculating machine, 
without the possession of any thought. Nor does he 
give any valid reasons for locating the so-called uncon- 
scious processes in the cerebral mechanism rather than 
in the spiritual fabric, or show why it is a case of un- 
5 



66 Statements : Theological and Critical. 



conscious cerebration, any more than unconscious men- 
talization. Our own impression has for some time 
been that this whole new fangle of " unconscious cere- 
bration" needs, but cannot safely stand, a searching 
analysis. 

The debate between spiritualism and materialism in 
the field of physiology Dr. Holmes finds so far a draw- 
game as that the spiritualistic arguments, one by one, 
are checked by some materialistic fact. Ideas may be 
scratches on the brain-tablet. If you reply that they are 
too numerous for the area of the tablet, he will cipher 
you how many ideas you can possibly possess, and show 
that the Declaration of Independence can be written on 
less than the surface of a dime. If you argue that the 
material tablet has repeatedly changed its substance 
through life, he replies that, nevertheless, a bodily scar 
retains its trace through all those changes. And when 
we note that the drowning man catches a full sight of 
the entire record of his past life at one glance, "it is 
possible, it is not impossible, that memory is a material 
record ; that the brain is scarred and seamed with infin- 
itesimal hieroglyphics, as the features are engraved with 
the traces of thought and passion. And, if so, must not 
the record perish with the organ ? " And this leaves 
the possible inference with Dr. Holmes that the bodily 
resurrection is the only solution of our immortality. 
And then for a solution of our responsible and tran- 
scendant nature, he makes his appeal to the free-will, 
firmly asserting on moral grounds his manly protest 
against fatalism, philosophical and theological. 

Yet at the very start of his review of the intellective 
debate he states a proviso which we wish he had exerted 
his brilliant powers in fully analyzing and expanding. 
" It may be true that the brain is inscribed with mate- 
rial records of thought ; but what that is tohich reads 



Anthropology. 



67 



such records" (the italics are our own) "remains still 
an open question." Momentously true ! The etches 
on the Sinaitic rock are nothing to the rock. It is the 
consciousness of the reader that not only takes but 
gives them their intellective significance. Transfer the 
scratches on the purely materialistic rock-tablet to the 
purely materialistic brain-tablet, and what have you 
gained ? You still need a consciousness to stand oppo- 
site the record to read it. If you place opposite the 
brain record a reader with a mere materialistic brain 
record, you have only repeated the bootless transfer, 
and all your transfers are mere nothings ad infinitum • 
you have not arrived within less than an infinite dis- 
tance of such a thing as a thought. It is not until the 
record is taken from the canvas, transformed from a 
flat writing to an image (as a picture is transformed 
into a statue) in pure mental space, that you have an 
intellective idea. That pure mental space is within the 
conscious being, and is more diverse from the brain- 
tablet than the ether is from the rock. It is not the 
retina that sees, but the conscious being which is behind 
the retina ; or rather the consciousness-ether of that be- 
ing within which the ideal-image floats. If some of the 
well-authenticated narratives of clairvoyance are true, 
that conscious being can in due conditions see without 
the retina. Perhaps Dr. Holmes will let loose and be 
"as witty" at us "as he can," to the great danger of 
our corporeity, if we add that, if some well-authenti- 
cated stories are true, that conscious spirit may in due 
conditions be disengaged from all corporeal organs and 
make itself perceptible to the consciousness of others. 
Our stock of physiology, scanty as it may be, has noth- 
ing that demonstrates the impossibility of such phenom- 
ena. We decline to abdicate the world's ancient faith 
in their reality. 



68 Statements : Theological and Critical. 



Instinct and Eeason as Distinguishing Brute from Man. 

Max Muller, with professional emphasis, finds the 
distinguishing difference between man and brute to 
consist in the possession by the former of language. 
He speaks slightingly of any broad separation based 
upon moral or psychological differences. No doubt 
the possession of language produces a chasm as broad 
between man and brute as physiologists find between 
the brains of the two genera. And yet if we will but 
analyse the nature of the moral faculty of man we shall 
truly find that it distances him further from brute nat- 
ure than any external characteristic whatever. Infini- 
tesimal gradations may as truly be traced from human 
language, made up of arbitrary combinations of volun- 
tarily selected vocables, down, through the significant 
articulations of birds to the most instinctive impulsive 
grunts of the most stupid beasts, as between the senti- 
ment of eternal right and wrong-in man, and that mere 
dread of punishment which forms the highest apparent 
morale of the most intelligent brutes. 

Instinct may be simply a receptive capacity f reason, 
a productive energy. As the piano receives the impulses 
from the player and evolves the note, or succession of 
notes, in an order which it is itself incapable of direct- 
ing, so may brute instinct receive from the external logos 
those sensational impulses which constitute all the phe- 
nomena of brute thought. The page receives the im- 
pressions of the printer's type, with letters in due order 
to form the word, which is spelled from without, 
namely, by the printer's intellect. What the page is to 
the order of letters and words, that brute sense is to the 
logical order of its sensations. It is receptive, not pro- 
ductive or completely formative. Reason is a genera- 



Anthropology. 



69 



tive process, instinct is a mechanical. In the reasoning 
mind the premise produces the conclusion ; in the in- 
stinctive mind what is premise and conclusion are 
impressed in logical sequence from without. Hence 
reasoning requires personality, an energizing productive 
self ; instinct requires but a susceptible sensorium, that 
can feel an impression, without consciousness of any 
central Ego. The brute, therefore, may justly be viewed 
as but a temporary fragile frame-work, uninhabited by 
any distinct or permanent personality, while man is a 
being, a self, an author of logical thought, thought in 
harmony with the order of the universe, an image of 
the Logos that produced it. 

Instinct and intuition may resemble each other in that 
both are impersonal ; their thoughts are given from the 
universal Logos. But they differ in that the former are 
but given sensations, while the latter are given " ideas," 
or conceptions of the pure Reason. Inspiration differs 
from intuition, in that it is not normal but special ; 
and is given not from the Logos but from the Holy 
Spirit ; and belongs not to the purely rational, or even 
to the naturally ethical, but to the religious, the holy, 
the blessed. 

Dr. Wythe, in TJie Science of Life, well asserts, from 
Quatrefage, that in estimating Man, the mind should as 
truly be brought into consideration by science as the 
instincts and mental habits of the bees, ants, and beavers. 
And so estimated, Man instantaneously stands a kingdom 
by himself, and an apparent division of a kingdom above 
all the animal kingdoms of this world, his very mental 
qualities being an index of his belonging to a higher state 
of being. And we here see with what cunning and devil- 
ish design it is that materialistic anthropologists depreci- 
ate psychology, and aim at reducing all anthropology to 
anatomy that they may, by leaving mind out of account, 



70 Statements : Theological axd Critical. 

brutalize humanity and extinguish the hope of immortal- 
ity in the human heart. Yet we agree with him in 
refusing to share in the extreme depreciation of the 
lower animals practiced by some more Christian writers. 
Concede to the animal being all that God has conferred 
upon him. We would not, perhaps, quite agree with 
him in saying that "the differences" between human 
and brute mind are " of degree rather than in kind." 
The difference of " degree " amounts to a difference in 
"kind." For instance, when we recognize a moral 
quality in animals, as the dog, it is of a different kind 
from the moral quality inspired by conscience in man 
and regulated by the Law of eternal Right. So far, 
indeed, as both are manifestations of mind they are the 
same in kind ; but so far as the species of mentality is 
concerned they are vastly different in species or kind, 
with a difference that takes hold of eternity. Hence 
we cannot quite, with Dr. Wythe, find the only proof 
of man's immortality in revelation alone. We see it in 
man's psychological structure. And then we see it also 
in man's anatomical structure, which is formed to be 
the adjusted organ of his highest as well as lowest 
nature. His brain being physically shaped to form tran- 
scendent thought, is the organ of immortal conscious- 
ness ; his hand is the organ to perform the behests of 
those consciousnesses ; his whole body is adjusted in 
accordance with those same higher consciousnesses; 
not, indeed, with them alone, but with an alternative 
capacity for executing the higher or lower behest, indic- 
ative of a responsible being. 

Trichotomy. 

We cannot quite accord with Dr. Raymond, in his 
Systematic Theology, in rejecting the trinality (or, as it 
is uncouthly called, the trichotomy) of our nature, as 



Anthropology. 



71 



body, soul, and spirit. He says, quite incorrectly we 
think, that the doctrine is mainly founded on St. Paul's 
words in 1 Thess. v, 23: "I pray God your whole spirit 
and soul and body be preserved blameless;" but the 
apostle must have been well aware that that trinality 
was in his day a current one in Platonic and other 
philosophy, and must have accepted its recognized use. 
His distinction of soulical body from spiritual body in 
1 Cor. xv, 44, recognizes this distinction, and is still 
stronger than his words in Thessalonians. In an es- 
say by Olshausen, translated by our own hand and 
inserted some twenty years ago in the Methodist Quar- 
terly Review, it is maintained, with great learning, that 
this trinality remains in the psychology of the whole 
Bible, and in the psychology of the early Church, 
and disappeared in consequence of its appearing to 
favor the Apollinarian heresy. Dr. Raymond would 
not, of course, deny that, in a permanent classification 
of our mental operations, there is a lower generic 
class which we share with animals, and a higher gen- 
eric class which we share not with animals, but with 
higher natures than our own. This is a most moment- 
ous fact. But if we have thus two sets of lower and 
higher operations, these operations are founded in our 
lower and higher natures. It may not be necessary to 
say that these two natures are two separate entities. 
And yet it is certain that the lower nature does exist 
separately in the brutes; and, that not only does the 
higher nature exist separately in bodiless spirits, but 
our own glorified bodies will lose most if not all our 
animal nature. 

Soul includes all that belong to a mere animal, 
namely, appetites, sensations, perceptions. Spirit is the 
transcendental overlay ; the intuition by which the 
absolute, the universal, the necessary, the ethical, the 



72 Statements : Ceitical avd Theological. 



beautiful, the holy, are thought. These are the upper 
chambers of our nature. While brutes have germs of 
consciousness, combination, and ratiocination, of these 
higher thoughts no lower species has the slightest ele- 
ment of capability. These, overlying and overspread- 
ing our nature, invest our being with a dignity out of 
all comparison with the inferior orders of intelligence. 

Professor Goodwin, on the words soul and spirit in 
the Bible, hardly does justice to the views of the trinal- 
ists upon the nature of man. 1. In the first place, no 
higher being than man, as God, angel, demon, is ever 
called a soul, but a spirit. A soul is, indeed, anthropo- 
pathically attributed to God, but he is in no place called 
a soul. So also a heart, an eye, a hand, is attributed to 
him. " With my whole heart and with my whole soul" 
says God (Isa. xxxii, 41). We thus learn that man has 
a higher nature, ranking him with the higher beings, as 
well as a lower nature, ranking him with the brutes. 
2. This distinction manifests itself, as Professor Good- 
win admits, in our higher and lower faculties ; but these 
faculties are, of course, a manifestation of their sub- 
stratum. The higher and lower belong to their nature- 
bases. We must trace the " faculties " to the personal 
nature in which they inhere. 3. As to the separability 
of these basal natures, we may surmise, a. That they 
have a twofold origin, one coming from God circuitously 
through nature-causations, and the other directly from 
the divine (Gen ii, 7) ; b. That as in a bird evolution- 
ally derived (truly or theoretically) from a serpent, a 
higher mind is superimposed upon the animal soul ; 
c. That, nevertheless, the two are not like a chemical 
mixture permanently two, but like a chemical union 
identified into one being ; and yet, d. In our transition 
to our higher state a large share of our brute nature, 
nervous and appetitive, will be eliminated (1 Cor. vi, 13), 



Antheopology. 



73 



and the glorified unit, reuniting with the glorified 
body, will so regenerate it as to render it a spiritual 
body instead of a soulical body. 4. Trinalists do not 
claim to hold a modern " discovery " in all this, for 
theirs is an old Church doctrine. But as the discus- 
sions with materialism and evolution advance, the doc- 
trine is applicable to the solution of an increasing num- 
ber of adverse arguments. 

Physiology and Psychology. 

Dr. Maudsley, in his The Physiology and Pathology 
of Mind, vigorously charges that consciousness is unreli- 
able and inadequate to a science of mind. We reply 
that consciousness is as reliable as perception; and that 
physiology is inadequate to as many things as psychol- 
ogy. His onslaught is very jauntily unguarded against 
a whole series of possible retorts. How slow, blunder- 
ing, and inadequate has physiology been and still is ! 
Psychology has never accepted her help, simply because 
she has had so little help to offer. It would certainly be 
more modest in that prattling infant science to be less 
quarrelsome, in its babyhood, with its older sisters. Its 
first utterances should partake a great deal less of self- 
sufficient snap and snarl. It is very doubtful to our own 
mind whether physiology is able either to invalidate, 
add to, or in any way modify, the science of pure psy- 
chology, any more than it can the science of pure logic 
or mathematics. Psychology is simply a systematized 
analysis of thought as found in or by consciousness. 
Whether consciousness is reliable or not, whether ade- 
quate or not, to a complete science of mind, does not 
touch the question of its legitimacy as a science. And 
though physiology may add a great many adjacent facts 
surrounding the circumference of the science, it is 
doubtful how far the facts she offers have any right to 



7-1 Statements : Theological and Critical. 



come within it. No doubt, in preparing a work on 
mind for our college classes, it may, as has heretofore 
been done, be practically important to draw large illus- 
trations from the facts of physiology. We may even 
infer many things as to the nature of consciousness 
from those facts. Bat physiologists are grandly mis- 
taken as to the overruling power of physiology in the 
domain of psychology. 

When the psychologist pronounces the simple word 
sensation, or sensibility, he names a thing which physi- 
ology, with all her knives and lenses, could never dis- 
cover should she search until doomsday. The searcher 
must come into the world of consciousness and identify 
the feeling answering to the term. For the moment we 
utter that word with understanding of its import, we 
have entered the threshold of a new existence. We are 
in the inner world of mind. However near in space, 
the two, the inner and the outside worlds, are in nature 
infinitely wider apart than Herschel and the Sun. With- 
out that consciousness, so much berated, the physiologist 
could never enter that wondrous interior world. And 
so superior is that interior world to the cold, dead, out- 
side world, that immensity might just as well be an in- 
finite blank, except just so far as that outside world of 
matter contributes to the happy existence of that inside 
world of mind. But this sensation or sensibility, above 
named, is but the first step into that world; the most 
infinitesimal cross of the dividing line drawn between 
the insensate and the conscious existence. When mind 
passes forth from the state of sensation into the act of 
perception, and first ascertains an outwardness or exteri- 
ority, and identifies external objects, then for the first 
time the insensate outside world has a chance to rise 
above the valueless nothingness of blank space, and be- 
come good for something. It then first attains, virtu- 



AXTHEOPOLOGY. 



75 



ally, if not actually, a real existence. We believe we 
can indeed conceive of a world of insensate matter as 
existing apart from and in the absolute non-existence of 
intelligence in the universe. But we repeat that but 
for the existence of that intelligence, and the capacity 
of that insensate to contribute to the well-being of that 
intelligence, matter and space are equally worthless. 
Pure sensation, the bottom and the base of thought, 
could never know that exterior world, but might be 
made happy by it. It is when the mighty change comes 
in which mind rises from state into act, that she first no- 
tices the world and concedes its value. If it be replied, 
that whatever be the value that mind concedes to mat- 
ter, it may, nevertheless, possess a value of its own, our 
answer is, that nothing exists in the universe competent 
to contradict the pronunciamento of mind upon matter; 
for the insensate cannot know itself, and cannot defend 
itself, and universal judgment must go against it by de- 
fault. Mind, however, does not stop at the direct act 
of knowing the external and the object; she revolves 
back and directs her glance upon herself, and realizes 
her own existence and her own operations; finally, in 
her highest effort, falling back upon herself and uttering 
the self-conscious ego, which nothing lower than human- 
ity can utter. Of all this physiology can know nothing. 
What right has she to talk of volitions, emotions, sen- 
sations, and perceptions ? Physiology must borrow or 
steal them all from consciousness. 

And now we say it was unquestionably a most legiti- 
mate and important work, within this wonderful king- 
dom of mind, to analyze and classify the modes and 
natures of thoughts, and to ascertain what can be con- 
sciously ascertained of their operations and laws. The 
work lies simply within the circle of consciousness. 
And whatever is found to be the validity of conscious- 



76 Statements : Theological and Critical. 



ness, or its adequacy to a full revelation of human nat- 
ure, the work was a great and legitimate work. If 
Linnaeus could wisely analyze and classify the plants of 
the vegetable kingdom, and so construct a science of 
botany, so, far more wisely, could Locke and Hamilton 
classify thoughts, and so construct a science of psychol- 
ogy. Should vegetable physiology assail botany as in- 
adequate and worthless because a large amount of 
additional knowledge could be furnished from her dis- 
coveries about plants, it would be a very unscientific as- 
sault both in spirit and in principle; almost as unscien- 
tific as it is for Dr. Maudsley to assail psychology 
because his researches can add something to our knowl- 
edge of mind unknown to mental science. For any real 
addition all true psychologists will thank his colaborers 
and himself. Whether or not the addition come prop- 
erly within the bounds of strict psychology, no liberal 
thinker will fail to rejoice over any gains to our stock 
of anthropology. 

It is not clear to us, however materialistic many of 
his phrases and expressions appear, that Dr. Maudsley 
is what is usually or rightly termed a materialist. In 
accordance with the new philosophy, which finds that 
the entire variety of things in nature is but the varying 
forms of force, he seems to hold that mind in man is 
the highest form of force. Hence, though matter and 
mind are but different forms of the same primitive 
force, you may still consider matter as material, and 
mind spiritual; or you may hold both to be spiritual, or 
both material. In other words, the terms material and 
spiritual lose much of their distinctive meaning. With- 
out kindling up a quarrel with him on this point, we 
should prefer to consider nature as force, and intelli- 
gence as something absolutely higher, namely, as power. 
Force is blind; but power in the form of intelligence 



Anthropology. 



77 



controls it. All force, in all its forms throughout nature, 
is obedient either to blind necessity or to intelligential 
power. Hence, again, mind is superior, prior, control- 
ling, and originating. God, the supreme mental power, 
is the controller, being the generator of all force; for 
force is physical, and power intelligential. A true psy- 
chology has, we believe, nothing to fear from a true 
physiology, nor a true theology from the new philoso- 
phy of FORCE. 

As sensation is in the world of mind, we may as well 
admit that in the lowest order of being the dawn of 
sensation is the dawn of a soul. From that feeble dawn, 
closely dependent upon matter, soul is found gradation- 
ally rising in strength and self-sustaining independence, 
through perception and consciousness, into the grasp of 
infinite and universal truth. The soul, whether of man, 
brute, or insect, is immortal, not by intrinsic physical 
immortality (which belongs to God alone), but by be- 
ing placed and retained in the conditions by which it is 
held undying. An insect on earth might be maintained 
immortal by being placed in such vitalizing conditions 
as secure perpetual life. Man's soul, unlike brute soul, 
endowed with independent energy, may survive the 
wreck of the body; may as power invest itself with sub- 
tle force or essence, forming for itself an ethereal organ- 
ism, and may live in a vitalizing atmosphere provided 
for its disembodied state, until the resurrection restore 
it to an organism worthy to stand by the side of the 
glorilied second Adam. 

Greatness of Man as Mind. 

Dr. Maudsley, in Body and 3fi?id, in a passage wor- 
thy of Chalmers for its cumulative eloquence (p. 112), 
ranging through the astronomic universe, declares that 
it is very difficult to avoid the generalization that the 



78 Statements : Theological and Critical. 



universe is ruled by intelligent mind. If so, then we 
have the primal duality, the grand antithesis between 
mind and matter, with the controlling power supremely 
inhering in the former. Mind, then, is master; finitely 
it is soul and infinitely it is God. To make it, then, the 
mere effect of the corporeal cause is to reverse the true 
order of succession, to invert the true order of super- 
imposition. God produces universe and soul produces 
body. The Materialist is nothing if not an Atheist. 

Dr. Maudsley is, of course, Darwinian. In treating 
the subject of idiocy he discusses the "theroid," or 
brute-like, form of that sad defect. One idiot he de- 
scribes as exhibiting the figure, face, motions, nasti- 
ness, and rascality of an ape. Such a case he holds to 
be a retrogression to animalism from which man is 
developed. We were strongly impressed, for the mo- 
ment, with this argument. But when, without offering 
any explanation, he proceeds to spread out full narra- 
tives of other cases, of which one idiot is a wonderfully 
exact sheep, and another possesses the abundant and 
unmistakable specialties of a goose, the argument ap- 
pears not only effaced but reversed. For how could a 
human being retrograde down to a goose when, accord- 
ing to Darwin, the goose is excluded from the pedigree 
of man ? Some other cause, then, it is — perhaps the 
maternal imagination — which stamps the brute type on 
the human person. And does not this throw a strong 
suspicion* upon a large part of Darwin's reasoning from 
resemblances of man to brute ? 

Our readers will perceive that in arguing as above 
from the existence of a God to the existence of a soul, 
we come back again to the axiom of Plato, before 
which no Atheism and no Materialism can stand, that 
mind is prior to, superior over, master of, matter; and 
we also may rest upon that maxim of Dr. Bushnell's, 



Anthropology. 



79 



worthy of Plato, that it is as clear that surrounding 
things are "mind-molded" as that they exist at all. 
The man who cannot see or will not acknowledge these 
fundamental truths is radically unreasonable. Such a 
Materialist is a theroid idiot with the stamp of the 
goose upon him. 

The following extract will indicate the spirit of Dr. 
Maudsley's philosophy : " I have no wish whatever to 
exalt unduly the body; I have, if possible, still less de- 
sire to degrade the mind; but I do protest, with all the 
energy I dare use, against the unjust and most unscien- 
tific practice of declaring the body vile and despicable 
— of looking down upon the highest and most wonder- 
ful contrivance of creative skill as something of which 
man dare venture to feel ashamed. Yet to my mind it 
appears a clear scientific duty to repudiate the quotation 
from an old writer, which the late Sir William Hamil- 
ton used to hang on the wall of his lecture-room: 

' On enrth there is nothing great but man ; 
In man there is nothing great but mind.' 

The aphorism, which, like most aphorisms, contains an 
equal measure of truth and untruth, is suitable enough 
to the pure metaphysician, but it is most unsuitable to 
the scientific inquirer, who is bound to reject it, not be- 
cause of that which is not true in it only, but much 
more because of the baneful spirit with which it is in- 
spired. On earth there are assuredly other things 
great besides man, though none greater; and in man 
there are other things great besides mind, though none 
greater; and whosoever, inspired by the spirit of the 
aphorism, thinks to know any thing truly of man with- 
out studying most earnestly the things on earth that 
lead up to man, or to know any thing truly of mind 
without studying most earnestly the things in the body 



80 Statements : Theological and Critical. 



that lead up to and issue in mind, will enter on a bar- 
ren labor, which, if not a sorrow to himself, will assured- 
ly be sorrow and vexation of spirit to others. To reckon 
the highest operations of mind to be functions of a 
mental organization is to exalt, not to degrade, our con- 
ception of creative power and skill; for if it be lawful 
and right to burst into admiration of the wonderful con- 
trivance in nature by which noble and beautiful products 
are formed out of base materials, it is surely much 
stronger evidence of contrivance to have developed the 
higher mental functions by evolution from the lower, 
and to have used forms of matter as the organic instru- 
ments of all. I know not why the power which created 
matter and its properties should be thought not to have 
endowed it with the functions of reason, feeling, and 
will, seeing that, whether we discover it to be so en- 
dowed or not, the mystery is equally incomprehensible 
to us, equally simple and easy to the power which cre- 
ated matter and its properties." 
To all this we may reply, 

1. In the doctrine of the resurrection, which Chris- 
tianity asserted in opposition to the philosophy of all 
antiquity, which Paul asserted amid the jeers of the 
sages of Athens, religion confers a glory on the body 
for which physiology has no capacity. In the incar- 
nation, the transfiguration, and the ascension of Jesus, 
the gospels reveal a transcendent glorification of the 
body. Romish monasticism, indeed, borrowed as it was 
from the idealistic systems of Asia, did degrade and 
defame the body; but let Dr. Maudsley turn to the New 
Testament, guided by a Greek or English concordance, 
and he will find many an honor conferred on the body 
which his philosophy has never imagined. 

2. And yet Sir William Hamilton uttered a transcend- 
ent truth when he asserted that there is in man nothing 



Anthropology. 



81 



great but mind. Body may be indeed curious, beauti ? 
ful, wonderful; but while it is but transient, and soon 
disintegrates amid disgusts and degradations, in com- 
parison with a soul that is immortal it cannot be called 
great. There is an infinity of difference between them; 
and even the glory of the body, such as it is, is deriva- 
tive from the soul. For the soul the body is curiously 
wrought ; and for the soul it is heir of the resurrec- 
tion. 

3. Equally noble and true was the other clause in 
Sir William Hamilton's maxim, that on earth there is 
nothing great but man: matter, however vast its bulk, 
is good for nothing but for mind, as mind itself is most 
truly great only when it is immortal mind. Matter 
might just as well be so much space, that is, so much 
nothing, except as it contributes to the happiness or 
well-being of so much living intelligence. From mind, 
therefore, it derives all its value; and so, in compari- 
son with mind, especially immortal mind, man, it is 
nothing great. Man, therefore, alone is great in nature; 
mind alone is great in man. 

4. When Dr. Maudsley affirms the endowment of mat- 
ter " with the functions of feeling, reason, and will," 
he destroys the immortal soul, and degrades mind, spirit, 
to the base incidents of material organization. He may 
still borrow from religion (as he hypothetically does in 
his criticism on the Archbishop of Canterbury) the doc- 
trine of resurrection; but so far as his philosophy, which 
knows no resurrection, is concerned, he sinks mind into 
the accident of a curious but transient and base acci- 
dent. And, say what he pleases, it is a disgusting and 
sensualizing philosophy. 

6 



82 Statements : Theological and Critical. 



Chronological Priority of Civilization to Barbarism.* 

Sir John Lubbock tells us largely and truly what un- 
civilized men are ; but whether uncivilization is pri- 
mary in historical order or secondary, he leaves us as 
uninformed as he found us. 

The leading topics under which his facts are ranged 
are, Arts, Sexual Relations, Religion, Morals, Language, 
and Laws. 

Sir John's argument against the Duke of Argyl, that 
barbarism is primitive and not a degeneracy from a 
higher state, we hold to be destitute of the slightest 
value. He maintains that there are certain possessions 
of the civilized races, such as letters and religion, that 
would never be lost, and where these are wanting the 
race is primitive. That, however, man is in the requi- 
site conditions sure to degenerate, even in these respects, 
is proved by countless instances. Here in Florida, 
where we write, is a suggestive instance. Within a 
century or two a large number of genuine Caucasians 
(the so-called " crackers "), excluded by slavery from a 
suitable place in the social system, have, even within 
hailing distance of what claimed to be a high civilization, 
changed in color, diminished in size, and forgotten let- 
ters, mechanic arts, and religion. Increase their centu- 
ries to half a millennium, enlarge the distance from civ- 
ilization, supply the climatic influences, and to what 
degradations, physiological, intellectual, and moral, 
might not these men, without ceasing to be men, de- 
scend? In the course of less than a thousand years 
any form of sexual relation could be established, 
whether promiscuous intercourse, voluntary and tempo- 

* Review of Tlie Origin of Civilization and the Primitive Condition 
of Man. By Sir John Lubbock. 



ANTHROPOLOGY. 



83 



rary unions, polygamy or polyandry, simple or complex 
as taste, accident, or surrounding customs might sug- 
gest. Then rude methods of recording thought by sym- 
bol, picture writing, or vocal signs, might arise. Re- 
ligious superstitions, fetichisms, shamanisms, human 
sacrifices, might be invented. Whether these deep bar- 
barisms are primordials or degeneracies is to be settled 
not by a priori arguments, like Sir John's, but by his- 
tory. A few centuries hence a Lubbock, ignorant of 
the true origin of these " crackers," might quote their 
degradation as proofs of the primitive condition of 
man. He would assume that the " crackers " are an 
aboriginal race, older than the Caucasian Floridians, 
just because they had sunk into savageism ! Such is 
the logic on which the title of this book is based. 

Sir John argues that the Australians, for instance, 
are autochthonic, because no relics of imported articles 
from other countries are there found. In modern times 
European plants are conquering the native growths. 
The natives say that the foreign rats are destroy- 
ing Australian rats, just as Europeans are destroying 
Australians. Xo traces of metals or pottery, or any 
other duraVe relics of ancient civilization, are found. 
This is, indeed, an argument, but not a conclusive one. 
Ancient migrations were not made in modern steamers, 
carrying vermin, seeds, pottery, and armor with them. 
The first adventurers in Australia may have been refu- 
gees from war, bringing nothing but their bare persons. 
Their landing in Australia mav have been the last stage 
of a succession of retreats through centuries, each stage 
more barbarized than the former, and successively drop- 
ping all traces and relics of earlier civilization. Driven 
into the savage wilds, they would naturally become as 
savage as the wilds themselves. 

We would remind our readers, however, that our 



84 Statements : Theological and Ckitical. 



faith in the Bible is irrespective of the question of the 
descent of all the human races from Adam. To us it is 
a question of pure history and science. By Dr. McCaus- 
land's identification of the Adamic with the Cauca- 
sian race alone, as we have repeatedly intimated, we 
hold that the full admission of the geologic antiquity of 
the non- Caucasian races would leave biblical history 
and theology undisturbed. The arguments for the im- 
mense antiquity of some races is so strong, and the au- 
thority of the opinions of many scientific men is so 
weighty, as to give us pause. But no conclusive proof 
is yet brought before us ; and we take issue with such 
bald and bold assumptions as the title of Sir John's 
book, not in the interests of theology, but in behalf of 
sober sense and modest logic. 

Human sexual relations have, as Sir John shows, 
taken all imaginable varieties of form, as promiscuity, 
pairing by mutual consent during mutual consent, polyg- 
amy, and polyandry. Sometimes the man purchases the 
woman, sometimes the woman the man. There are mar- 
riages where the connection had no force every fourth 
day ; others where the parties married for a fortnight, as 
probation when the connection ceased if the parties did 
not like it. The forms taken by female modesty are some- 
times grotesque, and even terrible. Sometimes the bride- 
groom takes his bride on his back and carries her home. 
Sometimes he is expected to make at least a sham fight 
to capture her. Sometimes she is placed on a fleet horse, 
and her groom on another, and he must chase and catch 
her if he can. Sometimes the groom must seize his 
intended, and a scuffle must ensue in which her clothes 
must be torn. Sometimes the groom, with a party of 
friends, steals upon the lady and captures her amid 
fierce opposition, real or pretended. Sometimes the 
groom surprises his beloved, and first leveling her to 



Antheopology. 



85 



the ground with a club, carries her off, stunned and 
bleeding, to his home. The wonder often is that these, 
and many other strange customs of uncivilized life, pre- 
vail among tribes too distant for any intercommunica- 
tion. They have sprung up apparently by independent 
organization ; and Lubbock shows much ingenuity in 
explaining by what processes of thought they were 
originated. 

Lubbock says (p. 70), " I believe that our present 
social relations have arisen from an initial stage of 
communal marriage." Sir John can " believe " what he 
pleases, especially as he furnishes not a particle of proof 
obligating any man of sense to " believe " with him. 

Under the head of Religion, our author brings am- 
ple evidence to show that there are tribes whose minds 
are blank of any supernaturalism. This does not, nev- 
ertheless, touch the question whether man is truly a 
religions being. He shows that men are found who 
are as unable to count as the brute/ and yet barbarous 
man, if truly in nature a man, is an arithmetical being. 
If the faculty of number may become torpid and inca- 
pacitated, so may the spiritual faculties. In both cases 
excitement, development, training, may bring the dor- 
mant energies into action and power. But the man is 
thus restored to himself, not endowed with a faculty new 
to his personal nature. To ascertain the true nature of 
man we are not to go to torpid man ; we are to trace, 
historically, the evolutions of activity through which 
he unfolds himself; and his nature embraces the bases 
for all these activities. 

In regard to Language, Sir John traces the similar- 
ity of the words for father and mother through an amaz- 
ing number of tongues in various quarters of the globe. 
He does not consider this a proof of identity of origin. 
He attributes it to the perfect simplicity of the ele- 



86 Statements : Theological and Critical. 



ments of the two words used, by which they are words 
most readily and easily coming to childhood utterance. 
He believes, and we could concede the fact, that the 
most primitive words were vocal imitations of the object 
designated, and he gives a whole pageful of such words 
to show how numerous they still are even in our modern 
English. But when Max Miiller speaks of speech as 
prompted by "instinct" he is unable to perceive any 
meaning in the statement. We are sorry for the dim- 
ness of his perceptions. 

In the first place, Sir John, being a theist, and no 
Darwinian, must concede that God has given man a 
tongue, and that the tongue was given to talk with. 
Just as men are framed with legs to walk with, with 
feet to stand in self-poised erectness, with gastric juice 
to digest with, and teeth wherewith to masticate, just 
so man is divinely endowed with a tongue for speech. 
And a good theist should concede that for every organ 
there is not only its function, but a correlative mental 
tendency, appetite, impulse, or instinct for action. Just 
as man will find out a way of walking, so he will find 
out a way of talking. As for the selection- of the par- 
ticular bit of shaped voice for a particular object, imi- 
tation (o?iomatopoeia) is the first and last easily indicated 
step. Beyond that step all science is in a fog. 

The Genesis history, however, makes a most clear 
and rational statement. Unfallen man possessed clearer 
intuitions and more vivid and healthful instincts than 
his descendants. As patriarch of his family, even after 
the fall, between whom and himself there was a most 
transparent sympathy, a degree of clairvoyant reading 
of each other's thoughts, his utterances would be soon 
understood and adopted. Let us suppose that his 
words are, first, onomatopoeic. Next his earnest voca- 
bles for motions, accompanied with explanatory gest- 



Anthropology. 



87 



ures, would soon furnish standard verbs. Then, the 
necessity for designating visible objects with fixed vo- 
cables being clearly understood, deliberate naming 
would ensue. Nowadays, such is our wealth of lan- 
guages and literatures that we make no new words ; 
we only fit old words to new uses. Oxygen, telegraph, 
and stand-point are not new words, but old words 
vamped over. So enervated have we become from our 
embarrassment of riches, that we have lost not only the 
power, but even the conception of creating a new word 
fresh from the raw material of voice in full adaptation 
to a new idea. 

Is it not probable that there is a correlation between 
every particle of voice with an element of thought ? 
We know that the back vowel sounds are expressive of 
adverse thought, while the front sounds are expressive 
of the more agreeable. Thus the back guttural sound 
ugh is expressive of ugliness, impatience, and disgust ; 
while aw expresses abhorrence, awfulness, and sublim- 
ity. The front sounds, e, I, u, o, are expressive of spe- 
cialty, definiteness, delicacy, and beauty. The inter- 
mediate ah is expressive of manly, liberal, firm thought. 
Of the consonants, the liquid are expressive of smooth- 
ness, grace, and ease ; the mutes, of harshness, abrupt- 
ness, force. These starting-points indicate, but do not 
authorize, the conclusion that there is in possibility a 
perfect language where every element of articulation is 
adjusted with absolute precision of form and force to 
the element of thought. The perfect man with intui- 
tions and reason absolutely clear, would in the begin- 
ning speak the perfect language, and his true fellow 
would spontaneously understand him. 

Is there any thing in the slow nature of linguistic 
development to disturb our belief in the Genesis narra- 
tive ? Is the demand of Bunsen and others for twenty 



88 Statements : Theological and Critical. 



thousand years of linguistic development more than a 
whim? If we take one of our long English words, as, 
for instance, contemporaneity, and strip it of the prefixes 
and postfixes, we shall find a central stem, temp, which 
is an old form of our word time ; and time is the cen- 
tral idea of the word. But further analysis will dis- 
close the fact that every prefix and postfix is really an 
original word, so that the long word is a heap of words 
with a, central nucleus ; and it looks as if the words, 
each, were monosyllables ; and so the original language 
was a number of monosyllabic roots, amounting, as 
Max Mtiller thinks, to about five hundred. How many 
years would it take Adam to accumulate five hundred 
monosyllabic words ? And if these were all monosyl- 
lables, how many hundreds of the near one thousand 
antediluvian years would it take him and his coevals to 
combine these primitives into compounds or inflections ? 
What if Dr. McCausland were right in believing that 
Cain went to the land which now is China during the 
monosyllabic period, escaped the flood, and founded the 
empire of the monosyllabic language and stationary 
civilization ? But we must assure Dr. McCausland that 
we think that, if Adam's dialect was very perfect, Cain 
must have imparted a highly nasal ding-dong to it. 

Peschei on Races. 

Peschel's arrangement of races begins with the low- 
est, the Australians, and ascends to the highest, which 
he calls the Mediterranean race. 

He believes, with Darwin, that all species are in some 
way derived by transmutation from lower orders, but 
rejects Darwin's "natural selection" as the mode. But 
the connecting link or links between man and the lower 
orders are, he thinks, lost, and may never be found ; 
but if found, as they may be, they would be decisive. 



Anthropology. 



89 



Hence the chasm is somewhat broad; and the increased 
acquaintance with races once supposed to be almost 
brutal so raises their reputation for intelligence as to 
broaden the interval between man and brute, and sug- 
gests the doctrine of human unity. And this unity is 
confirmed by the established fact that sexual conjunc- 
tion between the most opposite races is prolific. We 
may, therefore, rather assume that there is amid vari- 
ety a one humanity. But this humanity is of very high 
antiquity. To prove this he parades the old story of 
flint implements, Swiss lake dwellings, bone caves, and 
the rest of that vanity. He does not here furnish any 
thing new, and what he does furnish was not worth 
the paper and ink. On the other hand, he gives some 
remarkable testimony, showing how easily the hardy 
races of early men could rapidly fill the earth: "We 
will only observe, in anticipation, that the more rude, 
and hence the more frugal and hardy, a people is, the 
more readily does it change its abode t so that, in their 
lowest stages of development, all families of people 
were capable of accomplishing the migrations which we 
have ascribed to them. The difficulties generally exist 
only in the imagination of the spoiled children of civil- 
ization. In Central Australia, where European explor- 
ers were exhausted by starvation, hordes of black men 
roam about, free of care; and if we are startled by the 
idea that, thousands of years ago, Asiatic tribes are 
supposed to have crossed Behring's Straits to people 
America, w r e quite forget that even at the present day 
a naked nation of fishermen still exists in Terra del 
Fuego, where the glaciers stretch down to the sea, and 
even into it." 

Why, then, may not the human race in six or seven 
thousand years, beginning from the ancient civilization 
inherited from the antediluvian world, growing more 



90 Statements : Theological and Critical. 



barbarous as their distance of emigration increased, 
have populated the world from the Euphrates to Terra 
del Fuego ? We see an immense deal of assumption, 
but a small amount of proof to the contrary. Noth- 
ing that Peschel advances is unanswered by the great 
work on this subject of James C. Southall. 

As to the first home of the human species, Peschel 
adopts the argument of Haeckel and others. That 
home was not on an island, for the islands have nearly 
all commenced to be inhabited during our historical 
period; a fact, we think, suggesting that man is less 
than seven thousand years old. It could not have been 
in America, for here are no animals approximating man; 
an argument that takes the development theory for 
granted. And this reason excludes Europe and Asia, 
and guides toward Africa. But not even Africa is sat- 
isfactory; for the human race is clearly not descended 
from apes, but from an earlier stem, from which both 
«Mpes and man have branched. We are, therefore, pushed 
into the Indian Ocean, and must dredge up a lost con- 
tinent at its bottom, of which Madagascar is one of the 
remnant summits. This submerged continent is to be 
named Lemuria, from the lemur, an animal below the 
ape in development, and so nearer the stem whence ape 
and man diverged. Professor Marsh has dug up the 
primitive horse in America; let some explorer fish up 
the primitive man in Lemuria, so that science may re- 
joice in "the man on horseback." 

A strong proof with Peschel of the unity of the hu- 
man race is the existence of customs of a very peculiar 
character precisely alike among very distant peoples. 
As a marked instance we may mention that the cus- 
tom, that when a child is born, the father, as well as 
the mother, should go to bed and undergo a "lying-in," 
was found in ancient Corsica, in Borneo, in South Amer- 



Anthropology. 



91 



ica, and various other distant points. A dozen or so of 
such coincidences are quoted. These prove, he thinks, 
either a unity of racial origin, or a most extraordinary 
"psychical identity." It is remarkable, however, that 
he omits to mention some instances that point to a pri- 
meval origin in Western Asia. Not to insist on the 
" handled cross," there are the tradition of the flood, 
the serpent worship, and the remembrance of the- golden 
or paradisaic age. These point to that region where 
both the Assyrian tablets and the Mosaic records agree 
that man originated, without ages of previous savage- 
ism, in full possession of a civilization. What right 
have our scientists to hold those significant customs and 
those recorded histories as nihil? We lay clown P» s- 
chel's book more confirmed in the conviction than when 
we took it up in the unity of the human race, and its 
date according to the record. Pseudo-scientism prat- 
tles garrulously about "the prehistoric man;" but, to 
all present appearance, there never was "a prehistoric 
man." The first man was historic man. Men locally 
prehistoric, that is, unhistoric barbarians, have plenti- 
fully existed. But we wait for the proof that history 
does not name the first man of the human race. 

Religion, with Peschel, is a part of our own nature, 
and is an instinctive and gradually purifying truth. It 
is a growth in the race, and progresses with the growth 
of the race. Its lowest and universal form is Shaman- 
ism. A Shaman is one who professes to possess the 
power to deal with the occult powers of nature, whether 
by incantations, drugs, ceremonials, fetiches, sacrifices, 
or prayers. This Shamanism exists not only among un- 
civilized tribes, but shows traces of its power among 
our modern and most civilized nations. The supposi- 
tion that our prayers influence the divine will, and ob- 
tain any answers or fulfillment from the divinity, he 



92 Statements : Theological and Cettical. 



holds to be Shamanism. All intercourse between the 
divine and human spirit is thus cut off. Religion thus 
comes up from nature below; it does not come down 
from God above. His religion is, therefore, truly nat- 
ural religion. This excludes not only all inspiration, 
miracle, prophecy, but all descending, of the Spirit of 
God into our hearts. Yet Hebrew monotheism he views 
as the most remarkable of religious growths. Its cul- 
mination in Christianity is the highest natural religious 
development in human history. A survey of compara- 
tive theology proves the immense inferiority of all oth- 
er systems to the Gospel as a religious attainment of 
humanity. 

On the whole, we go to Peschel for physical and 
physiological facts, but not for biblical criticism or 
theology. 



EVOLUTION. 
Darwinism. 

The theory of Mr. Darwin may be stated as follows: 
All earthly living beings, the whole of animated nature, 
including man, animals, and vegetable existences, are 
one great genus, generatively sprung from one primor- 
dial origin. What are commonly' called, genera and 
species of this universal genus, are but remnant groups, 
whose intermediates have perished from the unsuitable- 
ness of their natures to meet the surrounding conditions 
of existence. These surviving groups, whose wide 
dividing spaces have thus been overswept with the be- 
som of destruction, are not divided by any law intended 
to keep them separate. Different species are prevented 
from blending, not by any ordinance, but by contingent 
obstacles which in given cases can be overcome, and 



Evolution. 



93 



thus the fibers of one life, as yet but imperfectly ex- 
plored, run in a perfectly complex entanglement through 
the whole universal mass. Man may, therefore, with 
genetical truth, not say only to the worm "Thou art 
my brother," but he can claim birth from the same par- 
ent as the oak of the floor he treads, or the mahogany 
of his writing-desk. 

1. We note this distinction made after years of study 
and experimentation upon the subject : u I doubt 
whether any case of a perfectly fertile hybrid animal 
can be considered as thoroughly well authenticated." 
Now it seems to us here is a fatal want of " a perfectly 
fertile hybrid animal." Until Mr. Darwin will furnish 
it, his theory, we think, lacks the conditions of exist- 
ence. We can accept no equivocal or impotent quad- 
ruped ; no believed or guessed specimens will serve. 
Until Mr. Darwin has caught us "a perfectly fertile 
hybrid animal," sound of wind and organ, his theory 
has nothing safe to ride on. Until then we must accept 
the following well-settled statement of Gabineau ; " It 
has been further observed, that even among closely al- 
lied species, where fecundation is possible, copulation is 
repugnant, and obtained either by force or ruse; which 
would lead us to suppose that in a state of nature the 
number of hybrids is even more limited than that ob- 
tained by the intervention of man. It has, therefore, 
been concluded that among the specific characteristics 
we must place the faculty of producing prolific off- 
spring." 

2. As to Mr. Darwin's fertile hybrid plants, let it be 
observed that he is able to ascertain no law regulating 
hybrid fertility. Every imaginable rule is overwhelmed 
with numerous exceptions, and he is flung upon isolated 
facts in confessed ignorance of all clew to the princi- 
ples. But he has found that supposed species have an 



94 Statements : Theological and Critical. 



unknown range of variation; transcending the space 
hitherto supposed to be covered by genera. That is, 
classes of animals which a first inspector would suppose 
to be unrelated or only generically connected, are really 
within the same genetic species. How knows he, then, 
that the isolated cases of imagined fertile hybrids may 
not be by immemorial descent within the limits of spe- 
cies falsely supposed to be genera or unrelated ? How 
knows he that the supposed hybrids are not the legiti- 
mate children of cognate parents ? Perhaps, after all, 
the case is under the law that circumscribes fertility 
within the bounds of species. 

3. From the geological quarter it would seem that 
Mr. Darwin's theory must be forever indemonstrable. 
It is by the geological record alone that the successive 
advances of existence in past ages can be shown. That 
record, so far as it testifies, gives a negative testimony; 
asserting that new forms of life have been brought into 
existence suddenly, at great intervals, and accordantly 
with a great transcendental plan. Mr. Darwin invalidates 
the negative testimony; but that seems insufficient. He 
wants the positive testimony before he can bring his the- 
ory from hypothesis to science. But, if we mistake 
not, it will be found that Professor Owen will have 
something to say why the testimony of paleontology 
should not be so unceremoniously ruled out of* court. 
Perhaps, also, Professor Agassiz may have something 
to show for the independent existence of species. 
We apprehend there will be found abundant truth in 
Mr. Darwin's despondent remark, e * That the geological 
record is imperfect all will admit ; but that it is imper- 
fect to the degree which I require, few will be inclined 
to admit." 

4. Mr. Darwin supposes that, "probably, all organic 
beings which have ever lived on this earth have de- 



Evolution. 



95 



scended from some one primordial form, into which life 
was first breathed." " Form into which life was first 
breathed?" But that is a miracle; a most stupendous 
miracle ; a direct interposition of a creative power. 
The Edinburgh Review, we believe it was, that first 
brought into the English language, some years ago, 
the great thought that the greatest miracle ever per- 
formed on earth, was upon the day that man first 
walked upon it in the full possession of his created nat- 
ure. Now Mr. Darwin's miracle, though at first sight 
less objectively stupendous, is really a greater stroke of 
power, a more momentous interposition, than the or- 
ganization of a new living fabric (which Mr. Darwin 
promptly scouts), with a vitality already manifested on 
earth. Minuter as it m:iy be, nay, invisible to the eye 
corporeal, it is immeasurably more a miracle to the eye 
of reason. Let our readers judge whether Mr. Darwin 
makes a safe bargain in putting olf an immediate crea- 
tion of an organic man in exchange for a supply, at one 
instant, of a life sufficient for the start of a universal 
system. 

later Darwinism. 

Mr. Darwin's volumes at the first treated his theory, 
applicable as its principles are to all living beings, solely 
in application to the animal world. He h:id long been 
collecting materials on human development, but had not 
the courage to publish them until the bold avowal of 
his views by less timid pupils, especially Carl Vogt, of 
Germany, braced his nerves to the enterprise. His 
The Descent of Man appeared eleven years after the 
appearance of his first book. Both he and Wallace 
are free from the trenchant pugnacity of Huxley and 
Maudsley ; and distantly removed from the coarse 
blatancy of Biichner, who exults, apparently, in the 
thought of reducing humanity to brute conditions. This 



96 Statements: Theological and Critical. 



spirit of blasphemy is illustrated by the very title of a 
Darwinian book (quoted by Darwin) by Dr. Barrago 
Francesco : " Man, made in the image of God, is made 
also in the image of the ape." Darwin's spirit is rev- 
erent ; he maintains the transcendental nature of con- 
science; and, if we rightly understand him, the immor- 
tality of man. 

Mr. Darwin traces the human animal to the Old 
World ape, finding his probable residence in Africa; 
thence through the lemur, down through bird and fish, 
to some low marine form. He admits that, though our 
pedigree is thus very ancient, it is not very noble. He 
contents himself with the reply that " the most humble 
organism is something much higher than the inorganic 
dust beneath our feet ; " forgetting that even by his 
theory our pedigree takes its very earliest origin from 
the primordial inorganic matter biblically represented 
by the word " dust." Nor is it true that living natures 
may not be both more detestable and more disgusting 
than pure lifeless matter. 

On this matter we may suggest : 

1. Darwinism cannot get over the threshold of vital 
existence without a miracle. How did the system of 
life first begin? The experiments in "Spontaneous 
Generation " at every repetition confirm the doctrine 
that from life only can life proceed. How, then, with- 
out a new creation — a creation however minute in its 
magnitude, yet most stupendous in its nature — an origi- 
nation of that -wonderful reality, Life, in the universe 
— could our pedigree take its primordial start? 

2. If Darwinism admits the immortality of the soul 
we must have a second instantaneous, yet most stupen- 
dous, miracle. At some point in the long pedigree man 
ceased to be nwrtal, and became immortal. This amaz- 
ing transition from the finite to the infinite must have 



Evolution. 



97 



taken place at an indivisible instant, for there is no 
intermediate. And so, in contradiction to Mr. Darwin's 
statement that there was no time in which man became 
man, we may positively say man became man " in the 
twinkling of an eye." There was a moment when man 
was formed, in the highest sense, "in the image of 
God ; " as the son of Sirach says, " in the image of his 
Eternity." The race, therefore, has certainly had its 
Adam y for the Hebraic word Adam, be it not forgot- 
ten, means Man. There was an immortal Adam en- 
throned at a miraculous epoch over animate and inani- 
mate nature, endowed with conscience and responsibil- 
ity, and installed beneath the government of God. 
Even then from Darwin himself, we come to a concep- 
tion so amazingly the type of the old Hebraic history 
as to impress us with its true divinity. And thus both 
scientific geology and anthropology, while they at first 
present a variation from the Mosaic record quite alarm- 
ing to the believer, do terminate in a strange typical re- 
semblance quite confounding to the skeptic. 

3. While Mr. Darwin denies that the similarities of 
pattern between man and other animals can be solved 
on the principle of positive creation after " an ideal 
plan," he is too candid a reasoner to deny that somehow 
plan, model, intellective shaping, does exist. We then 
think that most readers would deny that "ideal plan" 
can exist without antecedent mind to plan it. If we 
assume that matter can exist without creation, we are 
not quite obliged to admit that motion of matter could 
exist without mind to select the direction of the motion. 
But even if we should admit that matter might move 
by blind mathematical laws, and so pass through count- 
less evolutions, we can never admit that any thing less 
than mind can construct, outside of rigid mathematical 
law, an adaptive " ideal plan." 
7 



98 Statements : Theological and Critical. 



Mivartism, Three-Souled Foetal Development. 

In reply to certain taunts from the scientists that he 
was writing under a theological bias, Dr. Mivart informs 
us that he was really educated in scientific rationalism, 
but took refuge from its repulsive doctrines in the Ro- 
man faith. His Genesis of Species gave the first check 
to Darwinism, and laid down some important doctrines 
which have not since been invalidated. We specify 
particularly the following points : 

1. Though evolutionary development be true, yet the 
changes from one species to another are not always by 
slow degrees, but by sudden, great, and even revolu- 
tionary transformations. 

2. The new forms are not accidental, but are evolved 
by an inherent rational formative potency. 

3. Man being first formed by an intellective trans- 
formation and the infusion of a high rational soul, was 
truly created ; derivatively created, indeed, yet still cre- 
ated in strict accordance with the Mosaic history. 

4. That this view is neither novel nor heretical, but is 
essentially an old doctrine maintained by many of the 
ablest old divines of the Catholic Church. Those emi- 
nent doctors did not, indeed, teach the full doctrine of 
universal evolution, but of a "derivative creation "of 
which evolution is only an expansion. The full doc- 
trine of evolution is, therefore, consistent with the most 
ultra Catholic orthodoxy, and, therefore, d fortiori, is 
allowable in ordinary Christians. 

The old doctrine of Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, and 
Suarez was, that organisms are often endowed with a 
productive or creative potency from which new species 
are evolved. Thus parasites are somehow produced 
from the organism on which they depend. If Adam 
was created pure and perfect, how, for instance, did lice 



Evolutiox. 



99 



come into existence, except as evolved from the degen- 
erate human body? And so, said the fathers, there 
spring insects and worms from putrefaction — that is, by 
spontaneous generation ; for spontaneous generation, 
though now rejected as heresy by both theology and 
science, was once orthodox with both. But these views, 
according to Mivart, established as orthodox the doc- 
trine of " derivative creation ; " and evolution is sim- 
ply derivative creation universally extended. 

Many of the fathers, including Augustine, denied the 
literality of the Mosaic days. They held that the 
whole mundane system was created at once ; and that 
the six days were not a succession in time, but an order 
of thought. This was held by a large series of the 
Church doctors, from Augustine to the present day, 
long before geology raised any objections to the literal 
interpretation. 

To Mivart's doctrine of the "derivative creation" of 
man by formal transformation from a lower animal and 
infusion of a higher soul, Mr. Huxley replies as follows : 
" If man existed as an animal before he was provided 
with a rational soul, he must, in accordance with the 
elementary requirements of the philosophy in which 
Mr. Mivart delights, have possessed a distinct sensitive 
and vegetable soul or souls. Hence, when the " breath 
of life" was breathed into the man-like animaPs nos- 
trils, he must have already been a living and feeling 
creature." 

To this Mivart gives the following reply : " This doc- 
trine was that the human foetus is at first animated by 
a vegetative soul, then by a sentient soul, and only after- 
ward, at some period before birth, with a rational soul. 
Not that two souls ever coexist, for the appearance of 
one coincides with the disappearance of its predecessor 
— the sentient soul including in it all the powers of the 



100 Statements: Theological and Critical. 



vegetative soul, and the rational soul all those of the 
two others. The doctrine of distinct souls, which Pro- 
fessor Huxley attributes to me as a fatal consequence 
of my hypothesis, is simply the doctrine of St. Thomas 
himself. He says (quaest. lxxvi, art. 3, ad. 3): 'Dicen- 
dum quod prius embryo habet animam quae est sensi- 
tiva tantum, qua ablata advenit perfectior anima quse 
est simul sensitiva et intellectiva ut infra plenius 
ostendetur.' Also, (quaest. cxviii, art. 2, ad. 2) : ' Dicen- 
dum est quod anima praeexistit in embryone, a principio 
quidem nutritiva postmodum autem sensitiva et tandem 
intellectiva.' " 

The last sentence we translate as follows : We should 
say that there exists in the embryo a soul, which at 
first is merely vegetative, afterward sensitive, and finally 
intellective. 

This doctrine of ascending souls bears a curious an- 
ticipative relation to the discoveries by modern embry- 
ology of the ascending transition of form through 
which the foetus passes up to man. The vegetative 
soul first appears in the evolution of and from the 
ovum ; the animal soul evolves the foetus through the 
animal forms ; the rational soul is complete with the 
completion of the human form. Yet the lower soul is 
not destroyed, but is immerged into the higher, so that 
all three are identified in the highest. 

This vegetative soul is rightly so called as reigning 
not only over the animal, but also over the vegetable 
world. It supplies the growing and formative energy. 
It is the "plastic power" of Cudworth. It implies no 
sensibility in the subject, and is to be explained only as 
the divine omnipotence working under the form of finite 
causations and successions. 

The animal soul, the soul of all brute life, consists in 
the energy of the five senses, with the circumscribed 



Eyolutiox. 



101 



power of conception, comparison, and inference, among 
sensible objects. 

The rational soul consists in the power of supersensi- 
ble intuition, beholding truths not made up of sensible 
imjDressions, but transcending the level of sensible ob- 
jects ; such truths as infinity, God, holiness, and ego. 

In man these three are three and one. 

We adhere, provisionally, to the old Augustinian doc- 
trine that the whole scheme or programme of life, as 
developed historically into existence, exists in the di- 
vine mind as a unit, yet as successively unfolding and 
ascending by analogies and lines of typical law. Ideally, 
the whole animal genus is created at once, in due sym- 
metry as a whole. Such typical law does exist ; for 
hereditary, genetic uniformity is regulated and shaped 
by it. Why the law cannot exist without the genetic 
derivation is not clear. And we are not sure that the 
various similarities of reproduction, growth, diseases, 
anticipation in the lower species of the higher, and 
reversions, more or less abnormal, of the higher to the 
lower, may not be explained by successive creations, 
through geologic ages, generally ascending, and unfold- 
ing under typical law. 

That the operations of laws, whether of nature or of 
God, are modified by the subjects they meet with — 
that law crosses law, so that compromises between them 
take place in the result — are facts of which the progress 
of things is made up. Monstrosities and miscarriages 
in birth, to which atheism so foolishly objects, are but 
instances of the operations of one law crossing those of 
another law. Even in revelation, miracle compromises 
with and adjusts to the natural conditions. Adam was 
corporeally created, not out of an essence drawn from 
the highest heavens, but from the red dust of his geo- 
graphical section. What wonder, then, that the series 



102 Statements : Theological and Critical. 



of animals arising under divine law, adjusting to local 
conditions, should in particular geographical sections 
conform approximately to particular types. The nat- 
ural conditions, when analyzed and detined by science, 
if they ever shall be, will not thereby contradict the 
law. 

And this view seems corroborated by geology. Suc- 
cessive creations are written upon its pages. Races in 
full myriad spring up at their due epoch. Man him- 
self appears on eartk a perfect man. The earliest 
known human skull might have carried the brains of a 
philosopher. This contradicts and utterly annihilates 
Darwinism, and cannot be explained by purely natural- 
istic Mivartism. Both Mivart and Wallace claim an 
exceptional divine design in man. But in their scheme 
it is an anomaly, a mere exception, without admitting 
honestly and frankly what it needs but upright man- 
hood to assert, that there is a divine habit, method^ and 
law of miracle under which mail's creation comes. 

Animal Superfluities Explained by the Doctrine of Plan.* 

The recognition of man as the final summation of the 
living system is a key-thought worthy a conspicuous 
prominence in this discussion. It presents a striking 
community between science and theology. By it we 
see how the life-system is a one conception, a pre-desti- 
nat'ed unit in the divine mind, and that, indeed, wheth- 
er the successive genera in living nature are uniformly 
produced by a generative process, or by a series of 
epochal formative originations. Such serial formations 
could not be " special creations," nor " fiat creations," 
but aeonic originations according to. plan, and subordi- 
nate to law. Law is, indeed, laid upon objective nat- 

* From a Review of Dr. McCosh's Typical Forms and Special Ends 
in Creation. 



Evolution. 



103 



ure, but it lies originally in the divine mind, and is im- 
posed upon nature by the divine will acting in eternal 
consistency with itself. So says the celebrated Hooker: 
" Of law nothing less can be said than that her resi- 
dence is the bosom of God, and her voice the harmony 
of the universe." If formative originations do take 
place, independently of the generative process, as the 
records of geology seem to demonstrate, then those 
originations are as truly accordant with law as any gen- 
erative process whatever. 

This plan in nature suggests its parallel in human art. 
"In civil architecture there are four principles, it is 
said, to be attended to: 1. Convenience; 2. Symmetry; 
3. Eurythma, or such a balance and disposition of parts 
as evidence design; and, 4. Ornament. It is pleasant to 
notice that not one of these is wanting in the architect- 
ure of nature. The presence of any one of them might 
be sufficient to prove design; the presence and concur- 
rence of them all furnishes the most overwhelming evi- 
dence." 

But as the system of life-architecture is in process of 
building through long ranges of time, the earlier parts 
must be constructed in express view of the future parts, 
and must truly predict their future appearance ; and 
this gives us what naturalists have called "prophetic 
types." And correspondently some traces of elements 
of earlier animal forms are found in later, in fact, rem- 
nants of old species in the new, which have survived 
their original use and are apparently otiose in the pres- 
ent except as reminders of conformity to plan. Dr. 
McCosh, indeed, queries whether we are not too hasty 
in pronouncing any part of any animal form useless. 
The hump of the camel was once thought useless, but 
further observation has shown that it is a heap of re- 
serve aliment to be expended in sustaining the exhaus- 



104 Statements: Theological and Critical. 



tions of long starvation. Yet, doubtless, animal parts 
that have survived their uses are found; and Haeckel 
has grounded his atheistic argument on these facts of 
" Purposelessness." But the eminent botanist, De Can- 
dolle, has fully solved this problem on the principle of 
structural plan. He says: "In innumerable instances 
there appear forms similar to those which are connected 
with a definite function, but which do not fulfill that 
function; and nature, in these instances, as in the ani- 
mal kingdom, seems to produce forms which are com- 
pletely useless, merely for the sake of a harmonious and 
symmetrical structure." Yet these useless survivals 
may sometimes be viewed, if one chooses, as, like mon- 
strosities, being natural defects, incident to a plan in 
which the infinite cause works Under conditions of finite 
causations, subject to finite contingencies. However 
wonderful many of the peremptory exactitudes of the 
system, especially in astronomical adjustments, minor 
inexactitudes, infinite in number, are found in the king- 
doms of life; in fact, defects and incompletenesses are 
left in nature for man to repair and perfect by art, 
rendering creation a school for the development of the 
highest earthly intellect. 

Dr. McCosh finds a happy analogy between the ty- 
pology of creation and of revelation. Thereby the 
kingdom of nature is shown to be the type of the king- 
dom of grace. In both, long lines of correspondence 
run from the origin of the world to its consummation. 
This is manifoldly presented by our author. But, per- 
haps, he omits to fasten his hand firmly upon the real 
clew by which the unity of each plan, and the analogy 
between the two, are most clearly exhibited. That 
clew lies in the antitypic man as the consummation in 
which all the types converge, as authenticated by Agas- 
siz, Owen, and Winchell. All the types of creation are 



Evolution. 



105 



conterminous in man; all the types of revelation are 
conterminous in the Son of Man. But in the Son of 
Man, as antitype, are included his work and his Church, 
of which he is the embodiment. 

Review of Winchell's The Doctrine of Evolution and Sparks from 
a Geologist's Hammer. 

1. Predictive Animal Types Explained by Plan. — 
When Dr. Stillingfleet, the celebrated English theolo- 
gian, was promoted to the bishopric, he was reported 
to have renounced his early volume, The Irenlcum, in 
which he maintained the validity of presbyterial ordi- 
nation; and thereupon the presbyterial party respond- 
ed, " It is easier for Dr. Stillingfleet to renounce than 
refute his own argument." And so Dr. Winchell, 
who published the first of the above books when he 
was nearly a decade younger than he is now, as he has 
advanced in wisdom if not in stature, has renounced 
the conclusions of its argument. He has thereby, as 
even the Tribune, in its notice of the second and last 
work confesses, " won a place among scientists." But 
upon carefully, and, we trust, candidly, comparing the 
two books, we have come to the conclusion, at least for 
the present, that among all his brilliant successes he 
has not succeeded in refuting himself. 

In his first volume Dr. Winchell compares, with ju- 
dicial impartiality, the two proposed evolutions, the 
evolution by generation and the " evolution of ideas," 
and decides for the latter. Without, probably, having 
read Dr. McCosh, he frames in his own style a brief 
but clear statement of the doctrine of types aggregated 
into a divine intellective plan ; and finds in that plan 
the concordant solution of all the phenomena. This 
plan, culminating (as Owen andAgnssiz more pointedly 
express it) in man, is repeatedly expressed, and quite 



106 Statements: Theological and Critical. 



fully, as follows : " When the vertebrate structure first 
appeared in the skeleton of the fish, in that remote pe- 
riod when life had not yet been able to take possession 
of land and atmosphere, that skeleton, simple and un- 
promising as it was, embodied all the conceptions which 
have since been evoked into reality in the vertebrate 
sub-kingdom. Reptile, bird, mammal, and man existed 
potentially in the primitive fish. Modifications of cer- 
tain bony elements have wrought out each type in an 
admirable succession, and in the order of progressive 
derivation from the ichthyic type. The pectoral fin of 
the fish became the fore leg of the saurian, the wing of 
the pterodactyl and then of the bird, the fore leg of the 
fleet deer, the climbing squirrel, the digging mole, the 
paddling whale, the prehenso-locomotive arm of the 
monkey, and then the instrument to execute the behests 
of the intellect of man. Similar relationships of plan 
are seen running through the whole history of articu- 
lates, mollusks, and radiates." — Pages 33, 34. 

By this ideal plan is explained the prophetic type 
by which, in a lower species, some element is found 
dimly present which, subsequently, reappears in its full- 
ness in a higher species. So, selecting our own instance, 
the humble lancelet presents a glimpse of a vertebra 
which not until aeons after is fully realized in the world- 
wide creation of fishes. The lancelet predicts the shark. 
And so, too, there are retrospective types, by which, in 
conformity to plan, a glimpse of previous species reap- 
pears in a subsequent and higher, of no use to the 
higher species, and serving only as a mark of plan con- 
formity. And in this plan appear also synthetic types; 
generic forms where the constituent forms are so com- 
bined together as to be solved and separated into sev- 
eral future diverging species. By these three assumed 
typologies, the predictive, the retrospective, and the syn- 



Evolution. 



107 



thetic types, the mystery of the creative plan is unfolded 
and geneticism is shown to be not only incumbered 
with difficulties, but unnecessary for a solution of the 
mundane problem. And yet, in his second volume, 
mirabile dictu, he quotes the anticipative, retrospective, 
and synthetic facts as proofs of generative develop- 
ment, without noticing his previous typic solutions, and 
so failing, we humbly think, to refute himself. His 
new logic may be good, but we think his "old" (or 
rather young) " is better." 

In the "genealogy of ships" he traces the evolution 
of ideas exhibited in the advancing vehicles of naviga- 
tion, displaying a humorous yet logical mastery of the 
argument in favor of non-genetic plan, derived from 
ideal evolutions of human inventions. As there is a 
mind-created series of water-carriages, namely, canoe, 
skiff, sail-ship, and steamer, so there may be a mind- 
created, non-genetic series of animal species. Most of 
the analogies he considers good and valid ; but there is 
one, namely, the existence of useless remnants inherited 
by higher species from the lower, which he pronounces 
a failure. No " row-lock " of a skiff ever appears sur- 
viving in a steamer. No predictive steam-pipe ever 
glimmers in the skiff. But this failure is, we think, 
solved by the fact that it is not one mind which forms 
the one whole evolution of ships, synoptically, as it is 
one mind that evolves the creative plan. When men 
have built their skiff they suppose that they have at- 
tained a finality, and dream of no steam-pipes. When 
God has made a fish he has an eye to man. Nor need 
the steamer contain any trace of the skiff as memorial 
of plan. And these intentional tokens of plan in the 
sum of creation are no more surprising than thousands 
of intellective adaptations appearing in the details. 
The plan explains the detailed facts; the adaptive facts 



108 Statements : Theological and Critical. 



prove the intellective plan. Passing this " genealogy 
of ships," we have a chapter showing that Mr. Huxley's 
American lectures failed to "demonstrate" geneticism, 
and then our author proceeds to work out the " demon- 
stration " himself. But that " demonstration," we vent- 
ure to think, is negatively forestalled in a great degree 
by the unrefuted solutions of his earlier book. 

2. New Inaugurations after Three Great Epochs. — 
What Dr. Winchell styles "fiat creation," others "spe- 
cial creation," but which we call originative creation 
according to plan and under law, is compulsorily admit- 
ted by all theistic geneticists. Even Darwin admits 
that "fiat creation," divine origination, takes place at 
the very start of the system. Nay, if we consider the 
system as one great unit, a single stupendous animal, it 
underlies the whole. The whole system is one organ- 
ism, produced by " special creation." Stick a pin there. 
Our geneticist finds this origination to be authentic. 
And once admitting its legitimacy, he logically legiti- 
mates it as admissible at any new commencement, if 
such new commencement anywhere phenomenally ap- 
pears. He cannot argue that we know generation by 
experience, but we know no creation. And now, that 
such new commencements do appear, that there are 
blank ?pots and new inaugurations in the great series 
of mundane life, seems a fixed certainty, for we have 
the sure and final word of science for it. 

And in these new inaugurations we may note three 
things: 1. The blank interval preceding the new com- 
mencement is large and clear, not to be explained by 
the plea of " imperfect record," or the expectation of 
any new discovery. 2. The newly inaugurated forms 
and systems appear suddenly, without admissible con- 
formed predecessors, and breaking upon us like an im- 
mediate and very " special creation." 3. The new forms 



Evolution. 



109 



are stupendous in number, indeed, rightly often called 
world-wide. A new animal world, as well as a higher 
stage in the scale of progressive being, spreads itself 
before our eyes. So clear is this, that Professor Leconte, 
a professed evolutionist, declares that this can be ex- 
plained only by what he is pleased to style "paroxysmal 
evolution." " Paroxysmal " indeed ! A universal fit of 
contortion seizes the animals half the world over, and 
they suddenly change by millions of millions into a new 
species ! Or, as Dr. Winchell prefers evolution by re- 
tarded or accelerated gestation, a sudden fit of colic 
seizes a world-wide species and they fling up by spas- 
modic parturition a higher order of animal creation ! 
Was ever science so romantic? All this to avoid the 
action of that very creative origination which is admit- 
ted to have first inaugurated the whole/ Where and 
what became of the parents of this marvelous new 
birth ? Were they all killed, reversing the myth of 
Saturn, by their own ungrateful progeny? Did they 
all give up their whole being to the new parturition and 
so beget themselves in a new and higher form, being 
their own parents and own children, leaving a blank 
space behind them? How much more natural than all 
this is the assumption that the comprehensive power 
which founded the whole plan, and inaugurated by im- 
mediate formative energy the commencement of life, 
here in due order of law, repeats its first act; and that 
in due series with future similar acts, so that the whole 
series is a one regular serial process, with nothing truly 
" special," or " fiat," or violative of law, about it. That 
formative energy, Dr. Winchell theistically believes, 
shapes by serial process the form of every generated 
being. That belief he holds to be both theistic and sci- 
entific, and we see not how the serial process of origina- 
tive evolution is any less so. And under this rational 



110 Statements : Theological and Critical. 

view we behold Moses and science beautifully harmo- 
nized. 

Of the several intervals in the life series so wonder- 
fully revealed by paleontology we will present but three. 
The first is the blank in the strata of the Silurian, as de- 
scribed and demonstrated with overwhelming power by 
the great Bohemian paleontologist, Barrande, which 
Dr. Winchell amply quotes in his first book with con- 
clusive effect, and does not attempt to obviate in his 
last. Examining the brachiopods, cephalopods, and 
trilobites of fourteen Silurian formations, he found no 
species continued with modifications ; and of species 
without ancestry, but visibly originated as new, he 
found sixty-five. With so vast a blank, Barrande feels 
justified in pronouncing geneticisms to be " poetic flour- 
ishes of the imagination," and recognizing species as 
the product of "the sovereign action of one and the 
same creative cause." The second is the blank that pre- 
cedes the introduction of a new species, the fishes, con- 
stituting, it is most important to observe, a new order, 
the Vertebrates. The newness, the inauguration of 
the back-bone plan, the suddenness, a springing up all 
at once, and the world-wide extension, all laugh to 
scorn the dismal subterfuges of " paroxysm " and uter- 
ine miscarriage. Our third is the appearance of man, 
the being in whom all the types converge, the micro- 
cosm in whom the macrocosm is impersonated; a micro- 
cosm which is truly the macrocosm, being greater than 
all creation besides himself. He is at once animal and 
spiritual ; as animal, crowning the visible forms of ani- 
mal ranks with his own finite perfection; and as spirit- 
ual, basing the invisible orders of supernal life. And 
now the most ancient specimen of man exhumed 
by science is man in his full corporeal perfection, 
at a measureless distance from the highest animal 



Evolution. 



Ill 



below him. And even science affirms that he is not 
derived from that corporeally highest form below him, 
the ape; but from some still earlier stock, of which 
ape and man are diverging branches ! What ranks and 
rows of intermediate anthropoids ought to be presented 
before our eyes between man and that far earlier stock 
to justify geneticism. Not one ! Years pass on; the 
spade of the noble scientists is every-where at work; 
car-loads of fossils are wheeled into cabinets; not a 
specimen of intermediacy appears; and the negative 
argument has already grown solid by time. Thanks to 
our scientific brethren for, at any rate, their true zeal 
for truth; thanks, especially, for the truth their labors 
demonstrate, that man is not a genetic derivation from 
brute, and that Mosaic evolution is compulsorily con- 
firmed by science. Thanks for the firm platform of 
both theistic and biblical truth on which their labors 
entitle us to stand. Would that they all realized the 
richness of their own benefactions. 

3. Embryological Stages Picture Mosaic, not Darwin- 
ian, Evolution. — But it is the " embryological evidence" 
that Dr. Winchell finally emphasizes as completing " the 
conviction that the derivative origin of species is a fact." 
We cheerfully agree to this; but the question is wheth- 
er the "derivative origin" is the Mosaic, as typical and 
immediately originative from the plastic power, or 
whether it is Darwinian, genetic, and mediated between 
forms by an interposed bisexual process. In either 
case this succession of embryonic forms is shaped very 
wonderfully as a small model of the great plan. It is 
optically plain, we think, that in the production of each 
succeeding embryonic form from its antecedent form 
there is no bisexual process between the two forms, and 
therefore it is the Mosaic non-genetic plan that is pict- 
ured, and not the genetic — the very point in question. 



112 Statements : Theolooical and Ckitical. 



In order to make a model of genetic evolution each suc- 
cessive form should be begotten and born of its imme- 
diate predecessor. Before each form there should be 
the concurrent parents of opposite sexes. Otherwise 
it is generative evolution with the generative omitted. 
That is, it is Mosaic and not Darwinian evolution. Dr. 
Winchell expends a paragraph in overcoming this dis- 
tinction, which, not being sure we understand, we lay 
before our readers with numerically marked annotations 
corresponding with the numerals in the quoted extract: 
".It would appear, at first view, that the nature of the 
derivation must be fundamentally different in the two 
cases [the ideal and the genetic] ; but even this does 
not impair the meaning of the fact that, in both cases, 
we should have a material continuity from form to 
form ; and this is all which evolution requires.' On 
reflection, however, the mode of the continuity in the 
case of the embryo appears substantially identical with 
the assumed mode of continuity in the succession of 
geological types. Ordinary embryonic development 
proceeds through the multiplication and specialization 
of cells stimulated by the nutritive plasma in which 
they are bathed. 2 Generative or genealogical develop- 
ment begins in the multiplication and specialization of 
a cell stimulated by contact with a cell specialized sper- 
matically in the same individual or in an individual sex- 
ually different. 3 Propagation, moreover, may be viewed 
as simply a mode of perpetuating or renewing an indi- 
vidual which is bisexual, either monoeciously, as in low- 
er animals and most plants, or dioeciously, as in most 
animals and certain plants. 4 The progress noted in the 
succession of extinct forms is assumed to have resulted 
from some influence exerted upon embryos in the prog- 
ress of their development. The development acceler- 
ated or prolonged would end in an organism more ad- 



Evolution. 



113 



vanced. 5 This would be a new specific form appearing 
as a stage of embryonic history; and though many gen- 
erations may have intervened while the embryo was ar- 
riving at this new specific type, we may view these gen- 
erations as simply nature's expedient to continue the 
being in existence in spite of the wastes of physical life. 
So what seems at first a mere analogy resolves itself 
into a profound biological identity." 6 ♦ 

1. This is all that is required for a model of non-ge- 
netic " derivation," but not for a genetic. The very 
differentia, the bisexual process between forms, is non- 
existent, and leaves us non-genetic transformations only. 
2. But what " nutritive plasma " bathes the embryonic 
antecedent in the formation of the consequent shape ? 
The second form is simply an unfolding growth on 
proper nutritions no longer spermatic or sexual. 3. But 
what spermatic stimulation is there interpolated be- 
tween any two successive embryonic forms? Does not 
the succeeding embryonic form arise simply under con- 
trol of the plastic power ? Certainly it is not a bisexual 
or spermatic process that appears between forms in the 
embryonic model, and therefore it is not such a process 
that can appear in the paleontological succession of new 
originations. 4. Propagation seems to be merely nat- 
ure's method of continuing an originated form, not of 
originating a new series. 5. But how does this ad- 
vancement through accelerated embryonic process meet 
the case of the appearance of the vertebrate fishes with 
absolute world : wide suddenness? Was there a million 
of unknown semi-piscatory parents scattered in all the 
seas of earth undergoing simultaneously accelerated 
gestations? And what has become of those myriads 
of parental fractional fishes, and all the intermediate 
forms down, if you please, to the lancelet or the ascid- 
ian ? 6. But does Dr. Winchell denv that between the 

a * . 



114 Statements : Theological axd Critical. 



process of sexual generation and mere nutrimental 
growth there is an intrinsic, we might also say an infi- 
nite, difference ? To say nothing of the different forms 
of the process, the different movements of the mole- 
cules, in the two cases, there must certainly be in the 
human sexual spermata a psychical element, the princi- 
pium of a human soul, found nowhere else in nature. 
1 ~No combination of matter, no chemical compound, no 
nutrimental element, contains it, or is able to go through 
its processes or achieve its final human product. Other- 
wise spontaneous generation might be accomplished. 
There is the inauguration of a new personality. And 
it is that primal psychical element in the sperma which 
at start decides the rank of the final product in the scale 
of being. The primal vesicle, similar as it seems to all 
other primal vesicles, contains the secret differentiating 
cause that determines whether the embryo shall stop at 
fish, or dog, or emerge into immortal man. The human 
embryo never was a fish or a quadruped. It was from 
its beginning human, instinct with humanity. For the 
parent determines the child. To identify generation 
with growth is so a fatal fallacy. On the whole, Dr. 
Winchell does not make clear to our unscientific igno- 
rance how a non-genetic series of forms can picture a 
specifically genetic series of species. We see in that 
series a picture of our present view of the Mosaic evolu- 
tion, but not of the Darwinian or the Copeian. 

The Two Evolutionary Maps — Winchell and Rawlinson. 

Dr. Winchell's map of the origin and migrations of 
the race, found in his Pre- Adamites, finely illustrates 
his scheme. Assuming that our race takes origin in 
the now submerged land of Lemuria, of which Mada- 
gascar is an unburied remnant, he traces the various 
route* of migration over the earth. From this primor- 



Evolution. 



115 



dial spot, first, there departs a line eastward to Aus- 
tralia, and thence over the Pacific isles to South 
America ; and this marks the -track of the earliest and 
lowest of the human race, the Australians. Next, west- 
ward curves a line into the southern half of Africa, 
cutting various graceful flourishes, and endiug with an 
arrow's head at various points, and this is the next ear- 
liest and lowest race, the Negroes. The third line, of 
a brown color, shoots up northward, and sweeps over 
all northern Europe and North America, symbolizing 
the great brown Mongoloid race. Finally a briefer 
line ascends to western Asia, called the Dravidian ; but 
as it begins to turn its course from north to west, it 
changes its color from dark brown to bright red, indi- 
cating that the Dravidian had become Caucasian, and is 
now curving his beautiful lines over the lands of mod- 
ern Christendom. Our Adamic race is, therefore, trace- 
able back to Lemuria through the Dravidian, and the 
change from dark to red marks shows when and where by 
an upward development the Adamic race begins. Now 
in Genesis the word Adam in the Hebrew has really two 
meanings. It is a race name, designating a people, and a 
personal, designating an individual. As a race name,. 
Adam begins with the reddening of the Dravidians 
into Adamites : as a personal name, Adam designates 
the earliest ancestor known to the Jews. 

The process by which the transition is made from 
Dravidian to Adamite is a purely natural one, and is 
suggested to be by an albinosis. We are told, " Dr. 
John Davy, after describing a fine Albino girl of Cey- 
lon, adds: 'It is easy to conceive that an accidental va- 
riety of this kind might propagate, and that the white 
race of mankind is sprung from such an accidental va- 
riety. The East Indians are of this opinion ; and there 
is a tradition or story among them in which this origin 



116 Statements : Theological and Critical. 



is assigned to us.' " But if a white race thus suddenly 
springs up by an albinosis, a whitening, why not a 
black race by a melanosis, a blackening ? 

Let us now suppose that Dr. Rawlinson, assuming 
the literal biblical Genesis narrative with the Septua- 
gint chronology, and a degeneracy of the race from its 
origin, should construct a counter ideal racial map. 
Assuming not, with Dr. Winchell, that " man is a trop- 
ical animal," but that he is a semi-tropical being, created 
at the center, most suited to his highest nature, he finds 
that as the race diverges from that center it deterio- 
rates under various' depressing conditions, physical and 
moral, external and internal. He shows, from Peschel 
perhaps, how rapidly emigrations can take place in 
early ages when men are hardy and adventurous, and 
yet how large a share of the earth is found unoccupied, 
even in late prehistoric times. He shows how much 
more plastic the race was in filling out its programme 
of possible divergences in the rapidly incurred condi- 
tions, and how permanent the traits acquired by the 
divergent varieties of race often become. He may find 
no great difficulty in showing how, after the flood, the 
three sons of Noah may, within the thousand or two 
years from the flood permitted by the Septuagint, have 
sent the Mongol, the Negro, and the Australian, with 
all their present characteristics, to about their present 
abodes. Guided by that wonderful chart of ethnology, 
the tenth chapter of Genesis down to its date, he justly 
presumes that it must be supplemented by later his- 
tory. The projecting lines of that chart are pointers, 
and Dr. Rawlinson finds it easy by simply developing 
them in their indicated directions to bring his pencil to 
every point of present human habitation. 



Evolution. 



117 



Is Evolution always Ascending and always Slow 1 

Two points, especially, will Dr. Winchell make against 
this rival map. First, evolution, whether by genetic der- 
ivation or by divine fiat, is always ascending, so that we 
must find the earliest race in the lowest ; and, second, 
the rate of change in races is immensely slow, so that 
ages on ages are necessary for the production of the 
present divergences of races. On both these points, with 
our present light, we are disposed to concur with Raw- 
linson. 

On the first of these two points Dr. Winchell has writ- 
ten an able chapter, which, after our repeated reading, 
seems to us to miss the real question. Species, we admit, 
do, as a general law, both by the Mosaic and Darwinian 
evolution, ascend • but certainly varieties of species do 
abundantly degenerate. Now Rawlinson may affirm 
that man is a species, and all his degenerations are va- 
rieties, and varieties, even in the animal world, are 
largely degenerate. Says Professor Cabell, of the Uni- 
versity of Virginia (Unity of Mankind, Carters, 1859), 
" Swine in some countries have degenerated into races, 
which in singularity far exceed any thing that has been 
found strange in bodily variety in the human race." 
That seems a pregnant sentence. Here is a vast animal 
species whose Adam comes first, whose varieties degen- 
erate down an inclined , plane to the lowest extreme. 
Professor WinchelPs law seems to be reversed. The 
highest is first, the lowest is last. Adam we find at the 
summit, degenerating through the Mongoloid and the 
Negro to the Australian. 

The second point is a query whether the formation 
of a new variety requires a long period of time. And 
here, first, we can easily conceive a superior plasticity 
to variation in a young species. Endowed within itself 



118 Statements : Theological axd Critical. 



with a certain range of possible variations, the human 
species quickly, by emigration ranging through the va- 
rious conditions of the earth, may early fill out its pro- 
gramme of possible variations, and then the varieties 
may by continuance acquire almost the fixedness of 
species. A new variety may start in a single individ- 
ual. Seth Wright's celebrated new breed of sheep, 
whose legs were too short to leap fences, commenced 
with a single birth.' . And the following late and well- 
authenticated fact raises a grave suspicion that in the 
human species a variation of the extremest kind may 
commence with a single individual. We adduce it 
from the Philadelphia Press of May 2, 1880. 

In the year 1879 there was born to Mary Salter, the 
Irish-descended wife of John Salter, an Englishman by 
descent, residing in number 1807 Lemon Street, Phila- 
delphia, a beautiful boy with ruddy face and profuse 
silky brown hair, who was baptized two weeks later. 
In a few days his face began to darken, his hair grew 
stiff and crisp, and his eyes black. "At last he became 
as black as a full-blooded Negro," and was attacked 
with spasms. Dr. Reynolds, of Eighteenth and Poplar 
Streets, was called, and pronounced it a case of entire 
melanosis. On being visited by a Press reporter, Dr. 
Reynolds " said the case was a difficult one to explain, 
as there is so little medical .literature on the subject. 
It was, he said, a case of what he would call melanosis, 
or overproduction of pigment. Melanin, as the pig- 
ment giving color to the hair and eyes, and which gi\ es 
the boy's skin its dark color, is called, is thought to be 
produced in the brain, the nerve-center of the body. 
In this case there is a great overproduction. The op- 
posite state of affairs is where a Negro turns white, or 
where portions of a white person turn even whiter. 
This is caused by a lack of production of pigment, and 



Evolution. 



119 



is termed leucoderma. It is produced by nerve affec- 
tion. Colored persons with white spots upon them are 
not rare, neither are cases of white people having parts 
of their body whiter than the rest. The doctor said 
that the case under consideration was the first known 
where the whole body had become black. "I first saw 
the boy," said he, "when he was thirteen months old. 
He was then as black as any Negro, but he is now 
growing lighter, and when he relapsed in general 
health he grew darker again ; but, on the whole, he 
has gradually lost his dark color, and will eventually 
be white." 

Future research may show that such sudden change 
from one extreme of race to another, at first per- 
haps as a disease, is no impossibility. Dr. Winchell 
suggests that the Caucasian came from the Dravidian 
by an albinosis. We prefer to suspect that the Negro 
may have degenerated from the Caucasian, in accord- 
ance with the law of variety, by a melanosis. Dr. Win- 
chell believes it incredible that the Negro type could 
have arisen within five hundred and nine years from 
Noah. • We can easily be made to believe that the sur- 
plus pigmentation may have taken place in the family 
of Noah and in the person of Ham, the black. 

Cultural Deterioration Becomes Structural. 

Dr. Winchell distinguishes race inferiority into struct- 
ural and cultural; and he pronounces the Negro inferi- 
ority to be structural. But does not the cultural often, 
and we may say always, become structural ? To show 
how suddenly such degeneration could take place, we 
take the following instance : 

In 1611 a body of Ulster Irish were driven by war 
into a mountainous region, and exposed to the worst 
effects of hunger and ignorance, the two great bru- 



120 Statements : Theological axd Ckitical. 



talizers of the human race. "The descendants of these 
exiles are now distinguished physically by great deg- 
radation. They are remarkable for open, project- 
ing mouths, with prominent teeth and exposed gums ; 
and their advancing cheek bones and depressed noses 
bear barbarism on their very front. In Sligo and 
Northern Mayo the consequences of the two centuries 
of degradation and hardship exhibit themselves in the 
whole physical condition of the people, affecting not 
only the features but tfu j frame. Five feet two inches, 
on an average — pot-bellied, bow-legged, abortively 
featured, their clothing a wisp of rags — these specters 
of a people that were onc-e well-grown, able-bodied, 
and comely, stalk abroad into the daylight of civiliz- 
ation, the annual apparition of Irish ugliness and Irish 
want."' 

Here observe how cultural deterioration became struct- 
ural, how truly negroid some of these traits were, and 
in how brief a time it was accomplished on one of the 
most florid types of the Caucasian race. 

Are Racial Distinctions Always Local ? . 

Dr. Wihehell, however, admits deterioration, but af- 
firms that they are always only local. But how do we 
know that? We see continent-wide inferiorities to the 
highest type ? How do we know that those inferiorities 
are not deteriorations? We have carefully read and 
re-read his able chapter in which this affirmation occurs, 
and find an entire omission of answer. Looking over 
the surface of mankind w T e find constant elevations and 
deteriorations ; and when we ask for the proof that the 
deteriorations precede the elevations we get no re- 
sponse. Why may not Rawlinson be right in taking 
loftiest position with Adam, and looking down the vast 
inclined plane of the race, varied by hills and vales, to 



Evolution. 



121 



the lowest Australian level, conceive that the highest is 
first, the last lowest ? 

Dr. Winchell gives us an admirable analysis of the 
dispersion of the sons of Xoah, as furnished by the He- 
brew record, and does his best to build a solid fence 
between the Hamites, Cushites, or Ethiopians, and the 
Negroes. Yet he is obliged to confess "that it is diffi- 
cult to tell where the Hamite ends and the Xegro be- 
gins." What a fair basis for the conclusion that the 
Xegro is but a more deeply African Cushite ! That 
the Cushite was pretty much a Xegro is clear from the 
query, " Can the Ethiopian [Cushite] change his skin ? " 
And there seems just excuse for assuming that the Xe- 
gro of the slave-trade is the extreme result of the local 
miasms of Africa, mostly south of Sahara, working 
upon susceptible Cushite constitutions, rendered greatly 
permanent by long continuance. Brace says: "All 
travelers agree that the color of the Africans, to a cer- 
tain degree, changes according to the heat and damp- 
ness, the same tribe (as the Batoka, for instance) being- 
black or lighter colored, as they are exposed in a greater 
or less degree to these two influences. The lines of lan- 
guage, ns, for instance, those of the Kaffir family, cut 
across the distinctions of color, and one undoubted race 
may embrace persons of jet black and others with un- 
mixed blood of a light copper color. . . . What is called 
the 'Xegro type ' — that is,-the low type of the coast of 
Guinea — is comparatively the exception." He quotes 
an eminent savant, Abbadie, a resident for eleven years 
in Eastern Africa, as saying, "It would be impos- 
sible to say where the Xegro begins and the red 
man ends." And Peschel puts it still more pointedly : 
" In some tribes the nose is pointed, straight, or hooked ; 
even ' Grecian profiles ' are spoken of, and travelers say 
with surprise that they cannot perceive any thing of the 



122 Statements: Theological and Critical. 



so-called Negro type among the Negroes." May we not 
also wonder that Dr. Winchell lays so much stress on the 
" structural " inferiority of the Negro, inferred from the 
slaver's "natural selection" of the most depressed of 
the race? The first Negro, then, if he did not come 
immediately from the family of Noah, was the first 
Cushite upon whose internal predispositions the malarial 
and other necessary conditions were so superinduced as 
to complete the melanosis. Cabell tells us that the 
Nubians of the White Nile were once Negroes, trans- 
ported by the Emperor Diocletian from a western oasis 
to their present locality, where they have by reversion 
become virtual Egyptians in a few centuries. The 
Magyars, or Hungarians of Europe, the countrymen of 
Kossuth, were originally a tribe of low Mongoloids, and 
it has taken but one thousand years for them, boasting 
of their pure blood, to become about the finest race of 
Europe. They have required but that brief period to 
bridge the chasm between the Mongoloid and the vir- 
tual Caucasian, yet not without some interesting traces 
in their persons of their origin. Cabell remarks that 
some believe that they see signs of Negro advance in 
America ; but he doubts it, as there has not been suffi- 
cient time. If we give the Magyar one thousand years, 
give the Negro from five to fifteen hundred. 

There nevertheless remains the linguistic separation 
between the Hamite and the. Negro as a difficulty in the 
identification of the two as one race. But this is a very 
imperfectly explored field. At present it seems that 
ditferent sections of the same great Negro race may be 
as totally separate in language from each other as they 
are from the Hamites. African plasticity may here be 
a law to itself. 

Sir Thomas Mitchell traveling in Australia says : 
" This Australian rendered great services. ... I should 



Evolution. 



123 



add that his countrymen are not at all so void of intel- 
ligence as is generally given out. To me who saw them 
in their natural condition, they seemed at least equal in 
this respect to the peasants of England." 

The reader should particularly note the line where 
an Englishman places the Australian on a level with 
English peasants. 

On all this we query: Is Dr. Winchell after all right 
in placing the Australians at the bottom of the human 
race, and so at its historical beginning? May not the 
Samoieds of the Arctic be really as low or lower, and 
therefore the true originals of humanity? If both lie 
at the bottom, why may there not be two original races ? 
May not man, then, be both a tropical and " an arctic 
animal ? " Or if the Samoied is to be held a degener- 
ate variety, why not the Australian ? Why not both a 
degeneration from an Edenic center ? 

The true conclusion seems to be that the human race 
is one ; and that, surveyed as a whole, it rounds in upon 
itself exclusively, girt around with a chasm separating 
it from all other living races. The highest can pass to 
the lowest, the lowest to. the highest, in the due condi- 
tions. Says Mivart : " Sir John Lubbock quotes with 
approval from Mr. Sproat the opinion that the differ- 
ence between the savage and the cultivated mind is 
merely between the more or less aroused condition of 
the one and the same mind. The quotation is made in 
reference to the Ahts of North-western America: 'The 
native mind, to a» educated man, seems generally to be 
asleep ; and, if you suddenly ask a novel question, you 
have to repeat it while the mind of the savage is awak- 
ing, and to speak with emphasis until he has quite got 
your meaning.' " And Darwin says : " The Fuegians 
rank among the lowest barbarians ; but I was continu- 
ally struck with surprise how closely the three natives 



124 Statements : Theological and Critical. 



on board his majesty's ship Beagle, who had lived some 
years in England, and could talk a little English, resem- 
bled us in disposition and in most of our mental quali- 
ties." And again : " The American aborigines, Negroes, 
and Europeans differ as much from each other in mind 
as any races that can be named ; yet I was incessantly 
struck, while living with the Fuegians on board the 
Beagle, with the many little traits of character show- 
ing how similar their minds were to ours ; and so it 
was with a full-blooded Negro with whom I happened 
once to be intimate." 

Degeneration, or Evolution Downward. 

An article in the London Quarterly on Degenera- 
tion calls our attention to the fact that genetic evolution 
has been mistaken in affirming that all development is 
upward and never downward. There is in nature, under 
the proper conditions, degeneratio?i as well as exaltation. 
The conditions of this degeneration are given as three: 
" 1. Parasitism is a very general cause of degeneration. 
8 Any new set of conditions occurring to an animal 
which render its food and safety very easily attained, 
seem to lead, as a rule, to degeneration. . . . The habit 
of parasitism clearly acts upon animal organization in 
this way. Let the parasitic life once be secured, and 
away go legs, jaws, eyes, and ears; the active, highly- 
gifted crab, insect, or annelid may become a mere sac, 
absorbing nourishment and laying eggs.' 2. Fixity or 
immobility is another reason, as we see in the case Of 
the barnacle. 3. Another cause of the degeneration of 
animal forms is distinguished as vegetative nutrition. 
'Let us suppose a race of animals fitted and accustomed 
to catch their food, and having a variety of organs to 
help them in this chase — suppose such animals suddenly 
to acquire the power of feeding on the carbonic acid 



Evolution. 



125 



dissolved in the water around them just as green plants 
do. This would lead to a degeneration; they would 
cease to hunt their food, and would bask in the sun- 
light, taking food in by the whole surface, as plants do 
by their leaves. Certain small flat worms, by name 
Convoluta, of a bright green color, appear to be in this 
condition. Their green color is known to be the same 
substance as leaf-green; and Mr. Patrick Geddes has 
recently shown that by the aid of this green substance 
they feed on carbonic acid, making starch from it as 
plants do. As a consequence, we find that their stom- 
achs and intestines, as well as their locomotive organs, 
become simplified, since they are but little wanted.' " 

Now these three conditions upon inspection will, we 
think, be found reducible to one, inactivity, or rather 
the cessation of the need of activity for satisfied exist- 
ence. The hardships of life requiring exertion for ex- 
istence are the sources of improvement, progress, eleva- 
tion. All nature, perhaps, must thus work to obtain 
ascendency in the scale of being. 

Applying this to the races of mankind, it is said that 
the law of human progress and regress is explained. 
Hardships train a people to action, and the ascendency 
or even supremacy is thereby attained. But the repose 
of victory is the fatal beginning of decay. Professor 
Lankester maintains, however, that science is for the 
human race the source of safety. Men know the causes 
of decline, and thence are able to avoid them. Hence, 
for our race, at its present summit of advancement, the 
course of ascending progress is a plain, clear, maintain- 
able line. To this our reviewer demurs. 

He denies that the knowledge is likely to secure the 
requisite action. Will a people at the summit of pros- 
perous ease subject themselves to the hardships of their 
earlier adversity? The very nature of their enjoyment 



126 Statements: Theological and Critical. 



secures that enervation which is the very exhaustion of 
the power of energetic action. And hence he concludes 
that the true safeguard lies in the transcendent element 
of our spiritual nature. The value of that element we 
readily concede; but our spiritual elevation must not 
be of the Simon Stylites order, for that produced de- 
generation. 

The source of elevation, the proof against degenera- 
tion, let us call athletism. It is the vigorous training 
of our whole nature to its highest tension, physical, 
mental, moral. Now is it necessary, in order to this 
athletic training, to reproduce the hardships of barbari- 
an or semi-civilized life ? May not action be as attain- 
able, and as fully motived, by the desire of higher as- 
cendencies as by the lower ? May not each new level of 
life become platform for further arduous exertion for a 
still higher step of the terrace ? That lower stage was but 
one of the lower platforms of the terrace. Where is the 
topmost plane that leaves no incitement for the higher ? 

Both Moses and Darwin declare for an ascending ev- 
olution. According to both, ascending progress is the 
law, degeneration is the limited exception.. And the 
degeneration tends to destruction, and so the ascent 
becomes cleaner and more positive. The first chapter 
of Genesis gives us the ascending steps. Assuming, as 
we do, the immutability of the boundary line between 
species, large on any view may be the area of mutabil- 
ity within the boundary of a given species. We know 
what varieties are included within the limits of human- 
ity. We are not convinced that any lower species has 
crossed the line up into humanity; we do not believe 
that man on earth will ever cross the upper line and 
rise above humanity. But as our Genesis pictures the 
process by which man attained his supremacy at the 
head of creation, so our Apocalypse tells us of man's 



Evolution. 



127 



gradual attainment of the height of his own terrene 
nature, and then the sudden more than restoration of 
his Edenic state. 

Impassible Criteria Separating Man from Brute. 

In Mr. Leslie's chapter on The Dignity of Man, the 
human and the brutal are both physiologically and psy- 
chologically identified ; yet the brutality of humanity is 
at the close somehow soothed by the ideal presentation 
of the typical highest man, the Christ. Cheerfully ad- 
mitting that Professor Leslie is not to be identified with 
the materialistic school of Haeckel, we profoundly deplore 
his writing so brutalistic a paragraph as the following, 
every sentence of which, we think, is a disaster. He is 
abolishing the criteria that would differentiate man from 
brute: "Language is no criterion, for every animal has 
a language of its own. The sense of the ridiculous is 
possessed by brutes, who laugh with their eyes or tail, 
if not with their whole face as man does. The faculty 
of worship hi itself is no distinction; for the devotion 
of a dog to his master, of a lover to his mistress, of a 
Christian to his Saviour, of an angel to his God, has the 
same essential root, so far as we can see. Susceptibility 
to improvement is not peculiar to man ; nor the natural 
law by which there occurs an hereditary accumulation 
of acquired powers. This, also, and all the before-men- 
tioned criteria, are only available for a difference in de- 
gree, but not for a difference in kind, distinguishing man 
above the rest of creation." 

To the first of the above sentences we reply that not 
only has every animal its own "language," but every 
inanimate object has a " language," as clear and as sig- 
nificant as the animal. The roar of the cataract is at 
least as loud and as full of meaning as the roar of a 
lion. Cataract thereby announces his own nature, and 



128 Statements : Theological and Critical. 



threatens what he will do if you get in his way. The 
howl of a tempest, more significant than the howl of the 
wolf, tells that a whole ship-load of humanity is going 
to the depths of death. The whistling wind threatens 
more ferociously than the hiss of a snake. God has 
given to all natural things around us voices and utter- 
ances to warn and instruct us, so that it is a sociable 
world we are in. And if it be replied that such noises 
are not " language," since they are not the expressions 
of the thought or feeling of the sounding thing, we an- 
swer, No more are the noises of animal language, for 
they do not express the conceptions of a rational spirit. 
There is no wider chasm between the vocal cataract and 
the vocal lion than between the vocal lion and the lin- 
guistic human spirit. Language is not a mere mechan- 
ically shaped portion of sound propelled forth from an 
inanimate structure by physical force or from an animal 
frame by animal impulse. It is a sound volitionally se- 
lected from other equally eligible sound, and articulate- 
ly shaped to represent a given shape of thought. The 
voluntary adaptation of the given sound, selected from 
an immense variety of adaptable sound, is the charac- 
teristic of " language," separating it by a broad chasm 
from the automatic noises produced by inanimate or 
animate beings. 

If the professor now avers that, nevertheless, human 
language may come by evolution from brute utterance, 
we promptly answer, No, sir. Evolution implies that 
the product is rolled oat from an antecedent in lohich it 
is contained ; and human language is not contained in 
brute vocality, and so cannot be evolved from it. You 
may in thought, by subtraction and addition, exchange 
brute vocality for human language. Take away all that 
is brute and superadd all that is human, and you get 
human language instead of brute vocality. By subtrac- 



Evolution. 



129 



tion and addition you can make any thing out of any 
thing and into any thing. You can, in that way, replace 
a cataract with a lion. Mr. Huxley taught us, in his 
American lectures, that birds come by evolution from 
snakes. But is the song of the nightingale contained 
in the hiss of the serpent ? No. You must first elimi- 
nate the hiss from the hiss, and put the song in its 
place. But that is a process, not of evolution, but of 
subtraction and superadd ition. There may be a nucleus 
of identity remaining; but all that is specially snake 
must be destroyed, and all that is specially bird must 
be added by that process so frightful to all so-called 
evolutionists, u special creation." Man is, therefore, as 
truly differentiated from brute by language as a lion 
from a Niagara. 

Next, as to " the sense of the ridiculous," that is, 
that nice perception of incongruity between ideas which 
produces human laughter. No brute ever possessed it. 
The brute's sparkle of the eye and wa<? of the tail indi- 
cate no such perception, but are simply the automatic 
expression of being pleased. 

There is nothing analogous to divine worship possible 
to animal mind. Such a mental act presupposes the 
conception of the infinite, which surely the professor 
will not concede to any animal. Nor can any animal 
think it, or acquire it, but by the creation and super- 
imposition upon him of a rational soul with brain to 
correspond. 

As to the " susceptibility to improvement," the dif- 
ference of degree here indicates a difference in kind. 
The difference in the degree of flexibility between a 
whalebone rod and a cold bar of iron indicates a differ- 
ence of nature. The difference in degree between the 
educable flexibility of the brain and mind of the gorilla 
and that of an Australian girl (the lowest humanity) is 



130 Statements : Theological and Critical. 

as great as that between the aforesaid rod and bar. In 
three years the Australian girl learned to operate the 
telegraph; in three generations of culture the Austra- 
lian might equal the Caucasian. But not ten genera- 
tions of schooling would teach the gorilla the first letter 
of the alphabet. You have got to superadd to him, 
create upon him, something that he has not, something 
that he is not, and something that he cannot, without 
such creation, acquire, possess, or receive. We submit, 
therefore, that the professor's identification of humanity 
with brutality is a most ignominious failure. By the 
criteria of language, laughter, worship, and educabil- 
ity we demonstrate a chasm betwen the highest brute 
and the lowest man that can be crossed only by super- 
addition through "special creation." 

Genetic Evolution and Genesis. 

To our view Dr. Rudolph Schmid concedes too much 
to the argument for the antiquity of man from the fos- 
sil remains. He marshals out the old and well-refuted 
instances of the Neandersthal skull, the Engis skull, and 
also two human skulls from Coblentz, in 1873, in which 
were " eight marks of lower formation." The Nean- 
dersthal skull was really superior to the average Malay 
skull; the Engis was, as Mr. Huxley said, " a fair average 
human skull." The scarcity of questionable skulls is a 
great disproof of their being members of a great past 
race. As to the skull with its " eight marks," Southall 
furnishes the following exemplar caution against mistak- 
ing modern idiots for ancient fossils: "The Anthropo- 
logical Society of Berlin [M. Virchow remarked] had 
recently received two skulls, one belonging to a man, 
the other to a woman, obtained in some excavations at 
Athens, and contemporary with the Macedonian epoch. 
' These crania had a capacity,' said M. Virchow, 'which 



Evolution. 



131 



was, at the present day, regarded as insufficient to give 
a normal physical development. That of the female 
had the capacity of the cranium of a savage of New 
Holland : the other was a little larger. One might 
regard that of the woman as Mongolian by its anatom- 
ical characters, and if it had been found at Foorfoos it 
would certainly have been considered as coming from a 
very inferior and very primitive race." 1 " 

Nevertheless, it belonged to a woman named Glykera, 
and her rank was indicated by the precious relics found 
in her tomb. 

Highest in authority on the origin of man, Dr. Schmid 
ranks Von Baer, " the pioneer in the region of the his- 
tory of individual development;" and some of the 
views attributed to him are very noteworthy. Von 
Baer "is by no means disinclined to the idea of the 
origin of species through descent, whether in gradual 
development or in leaps ; " but he confesses " with a 
modesty worthy of acknowledgment his total ignorance 
concert) big the manner in which certain forms of life, 
especially the higher ones, originated. The origin of 
higher species without the supposition of a descent is 
to him unexplainable, because the individuals of these 
species are, in their first development of life, so depend* 
ent on their mother. Furthermore, he points out the 
fact that in early periods of the earth the organic form- 
ing power which ruled must have been a higher one than 
it is at the present ; in like manner as the first period of 
life in the embryonic development of individuals is to- 
day the most productive. This higher power of organ- 
ization, he says, could consist in a higher power chang- 
ing organisms into new. species, as well as a higher 
power of producing a new species through primitive gen- 
eration [that is, parentless origination of new forms] ; 
or it would consist in both. In general, there is no rea- 



132 Statements : Theological and Ceitical. 



son to suppose that primitive generations which took 
place at the first origination of life on earth, could not 
have been repeated later and oftener. The nearer a 
generation was to these individuals originated through 
primitive generation the greater undoubtedly was its 
flexibility and changeableness ; the farther, the greater 
the fixity of type." 

Here are utterances that seem almost to put us back 
to the Mosaic evolution and parentless creation of man. 

1. The highest science here confesses, after all the 
boasts of having explained every thing, a "total igno- 
rance" as to the origination of the highest forms. Sci- 
ence, therefore, vacates the field, and leaves it to (not 
" special creation," as it has been absurdly called, but to) 
organic and law-ruled general creation. 

2. Tiiis scientific "total ignorance" of the origin of 
the highest forms may well be confessed. For how 
can an important limb half formed be put forth with- 
out being an incumbrance destructive in the race of 
life ; without being atrophied by disuse ; without being 
absorbed by repeated cross generations ? And how can 
the definite specialization of such limb, its completion 
and adaptation to a variety of complex special uses, be 
imagined unteleologically ? And this argument applies 
more forcibly to the higher species than to the lower. 
And when we notice Schmid's further statement, that 
no new species has appeared during the human period, 
and so no origination of species has ever been seen by 
man, what ground is there for the denial of parentless 
origination of new species of even the highest order ? 

3. The impossibility of a new form arising and main- 
taining existence, independently of a mother, can be 
solved only by a miraculous supposition, or a supernat- 
ure above the plane of our present nature. More than 
fifty years ago, Dr. Olin, in an eloquent passage in a 



Evolution. 



133 



published sermon, forcibly argued the truth of the Mo- 
saic accounts of the creation of man from the lono- 
helplessness of the human infant. The argument seems 
to stand good to-day. Says the rationalistic philoso- 
pher, Fichte : " Who, then, educated the first human 
pair ? A spirit bestowed its care upon them, as is laid 
down in an ancient and venerable original record, which, 
taken altogether, contains the profoundest and the lofti- 
est wisdom, and presents those results to which all phi- 
losophy must at last return." — Kitto, article Adam. 

4. This requirement of a greater primitive plasticity, 
and even of species-creation in earlier ages, has, we 
may suggest, an apparent accordance with the linguist's 
requirement of a primitive power of word-forming by 
original creation, now lost, leaving nothing but word- 
formation by derivation. 

Dr. Schmid justly and effectively emphasizes the fact 
that no ?ieto species has appeared on the earth since the 
creation of man. The variant forms of species are of too 
low and equivocal a character to form any exception to 
the universality of this statement. And this is a very 
significant view. We know thence what constitutes 
the sabbatic rest of the Creator, when with man's for- 
mation he closed the evolutions of new forms of life. 
And we see how we are now in the cosmical sabbath of 
God; and how the creative days of Moses were there- 
fore cosmic days. This view spreads the surface of 
the earth before us as the area of a definite period, an 
?eon, a dispensation, or (as Tayler Lewis invented the 
term) a " time-world." It is man's day, in which he is 
ruler over the earlier races that waited his. advent. 
And man is not merely, in our author's phrase, "a so- 
matic-psychical " being, but a somatic - psychic - pneu- 
matic being. He is endowed with capacities and intui- 
tions, correlating him with supernal existence. Room 



13-i Statements : Theological and Ckitical. 



is here found for all the conditions of responsibility and 
eschatology. The kingdom of nature opens full space 
for the kingdom of probation. 

Dr. Schmid quotes as expressive of " a right feeling," 
forsooth, Darwin's sentence, "For my own part I would 
as soon be descended from that heroic little monkey 
. . . or from that old baboon ... as from a savage," 
etc. " "Right feeling " or not, it is not the biblical " feel- 
ing ; " for that marks man off from the lower races by 
a direct creative interposition of God, a supernal breath 
and a divine " image." 

AVhat makes this surrender more unfortunate is its 
ignoring the grand tradition recorded on the memory 
of all the great races of a golden age, an Edenic origin, 
and a primal fall, so vividly set forth by Lenormant, as 
insurance of a historic reality. Evolution has no right 
to forget that historicity, but must adjust its scheme to 
its positive reality. How much more should biblical 
defense insist on that adjustment, and firmly maintain 
the truth of our Edenic history ! The Psalm of the Crea- 
tion which commences Genesis is poetically true ; the par- 
adise narrative that follows is historically true. Woe be 
to the pseudo-Christian biblicist that surrenders either. 

Evolution Requires Little Change in Interpreting Genesis. 

Evolution requires no greater changes of interpreta- 
tion in the history of man's creation than has already 
been made in the interpretation of the first chapter of 
Genesis. The Bible will no more fall by the adoption 
of evolution than it fell by the adoption of the antipo- 
des. Our views of revelation may be as justly changed 
by new discoveries as our views of nature. TVe do not 
believe in the evolutionary creation of man. We shall 
not believe until it is proved. But we shall believe it 
when it is proved. And we shall then read certain 



Evolution. 



135 



texts and explain certain doctrines by the light of that 
discovery. AYe do not yet believe the pre-Mosaic an- 
tiquity of Man. We shall believe it when it is proved. 
One may, then, either, with Stanley and Farrar, consider 
the first ten chapters of Genesis as a separate inauthen- 
tic document ; or, with Dr. J. P. Thompson and others, 
may snap asunder the genealogies, and antedate the 
Adamic creation far back into a geological period : or 
one may, with McCausland, hold that the Adamic race 
was a later creation. As we have repeatedly intimated, 
it is this last theory which we should far prefer. 



LIFE. 

Definition of Life. 

Ox the topic of Protoplasm, or, more properly, as Dr. 
Beale calls it, Bioplasm, Dr. Nicholson, in Introduction 
to the Study of Biology, admits the true existence of a 
"physical basis of life," but exposes Huxley's stupid 
blunder in confounding the basis with the life itself. 
The basis is only a condition of the manifestation of 
life, as the conductor is the basis of the manifestation of 
electricity. But in neither case is the basis necessary 
to the existence of the element. Lightning exists with- 
out the conductor, and the life may exist without the 
bioplasm. And the phenomena of life cannot be chem- 
ically explained. There is an immense amount of cases 
in which the vital phenomena operate by overriding all 
known chemical forces and laws. These antichemical 
and. superchemical forces must provisionally, at least, 
be labeled as "vital forces." It is true, science has in 
past times been much advanced by rescuing to the 
domain of chemistry much that was once included in 
the domain of u vital force." 



136 Statements : Theological and Critical. 



It is an intensely important question at the present 
day, What is Life? Writers like Carpenter, Draper, 
Youmans, Herbert Spencer, a large body of physiolo- 
gists, define it as simply the sum total of all our actions 
as organic systems ; and those actions within our phys- 
ical systems by which they form, grow, pass through a 
natural history, and dissolve, are all the results of chem- 
ical and mechanical causes. Dr. Carpenter holds that a 
" vital principle " is no more necessary in a human body 
than a locomotive needs a " steam-engine " principle. 
Draper believes that all the phenomena of human vital- 
ity are as truly produced by chemico-mechanical powers 
and forces as the blaze of a candle. And the reader is 
in due time made to understand that under this term 
-Life, as so chemico-mechanically produced, are included 
all the phenomena of consciousness. The whole come 
under the term Biology, or Life-science. And Biology, 
including Psychology, is but a branch of Physiology. 
All that men have hitherto designated as soul, mind, 
spirit, are but the chemico-mechanical action of organic 
masses of matter. 

But these gentlemen deny that they are materialists. 
How? By putting forward an idealistic theory of matter 
itself. Thus, Professor Huxley expends the last third 
of his lecture in extricating us from materialism by 
showing that matter itself is nothing but a force by 
which our minds are impressed ; that we know nothing 
of what matter is made, and that it makes no difference 
whether you call it matter or spirit. The transparent 
fallacy of such an extrication is, of course, obvious to 
these gentlemen themselves. Whatever matter is or is 
not, they silently imply that thought or soul is the 
result of its organized form, and forever ceases to exist 
when that organism dissolves. Whether their theory 
denies immaterialism or not, it denies immortality. It 



Life. 



137 



denies that dualism of our nature by which our true self 
is seen to survive the wreck of our corporeal self. If 
they demonstrate this theory nothing is left us but the 
renunciation of Christianity, or the adoption of that 
Christian annihilationism which maintains the resurrec- 
tional reorganization of the same body with the same 
system of recollections and consciousness, as the only 
ground of our hope of a future existence. 

Dr. Beale, on the other hand, maintains that matter 
is found in a proper living state, in which actions are 
performed which no chemico-mechanical causes can be 
supposed to produce. It is derived as no living aggre- 
gation is, from a similar organism, hereditarily and lin- 
eally ; it grows in its own unique way as nothing else 
does ; it distributes its own particles into correspondent 
departments ; so as to form and construct itself into a 
symmetrical and definitely planned organism ; it pos- 
sesses the power of self-motion in violation of the laws 
of gravitation, and unindebted to mechanical impulsion 
or chemical agency. And from Psychology Dr. Beale 
might have added that by consciousness we identify our 
ego not so much with the moved limb as with the mov- 
ing power. What moves my body is I. 

To us it seems odd that physiologists never look to 
the world of mind, nor ever recognize such a thino- as 
intelligence, in their pursuit after a definition. As a 
psychologist, at any rate, we have, or imagine we have, 
no dilficiilty — so far, at least, as psychology is con- 
cerned. Life we define as that state of organic matter 
which is necessary to its becoming the basis of intelli- 
gence. Or, more briefly, Life is the organic condition 
of thought. This, indeed, defines animal life alone ; 
and rightly, for animal life is a different thing from 
vegetable life, and so the same description ought not to 
suit both. Vegetable life, if life it is to be called, is the 



138 Statements : Theological and Critical. 



organic condition of the true growth process. The ani- 
mal shares the same organic life as the vegetable, with 
a higher thought-conditioning life ; so that both ani- 
mals and vegetables grow, and nothing else does grow. 
Neither a rolling snow-ball or a crystal grows, but ani- 
mals and plants alone do grow. Vegetable life, there- 
fore, is the organic condition of growth, while animal 
life is the organic condition of thought. 

How does a microscopist decide that a scarce visible 
animalcular particle is alive ? In no other way than by 
its movements resembling those produced by volitions 
in larger animals. So that manifested volition after all 
is with him the test of life. But even the first faint 
gleam of sensation in a material particle would imply 
life. And this enables a psychologist, at any rate, to 
find in thought the real distinction between animals 
and plants, which in their lowest orders become undis- 
tinguishable to the eye of the physiologist. The ani- 
mal belongs, however dimly enlightened, to the intelli- 
gent world. And between intelligence and absolute 
unintelligence the difference is infinite. The faintest 
possible spark of sensation in the lowest animal being is 
in nature one with the highest intelligence, and belongs 
to the universe of mind overlying the universe of 
matter. 

On Professor Tyndall's profound query whether " life 
was present potentially in matter when in the nebulous 
form, and was unfolded from it by way of natural de- 
velopment, or is a principle inserted into another at a 
later date," we suggest: 

If God be, as we believe, immanent within the uni- 
verse, as well as the universe in him, if he be the Life 
of its life, the Soul of its soul, and the Substratum of 
all its substrata, then admissibly he and the essence of 
our life were both at the beginning in the nebula. 



Life. 



139 



Then it was God impregnating matter that constituted 
or rather was " the promise and potency " of all the for- 
mations and evolutions of matter. And so theism 
teaches. And so life, though perhaps not a proper 
part of the nebula, was infolded within it, aud then 
by a divine process unfolded in due time, or " devel- 
oped " from it. And the divine " fiat," so called, was 
not a formula in Hebrew words, but the omnipotent 
initiation of life at the moment of readiness in the suc- 
cession of ages. If the nebula itself was eternal, then 
God is its eternal Creator by its being the eternal effect 
of his Causation. Life thus evolved by God from the 
system of matter, yet not itself matter, involves no 
materialistic conclusions. Even if the human soul, or 
rather spirit, can be truly shown to be thus evolved 
from the corporeal system, materialism does not follow. 
The soul is still itself uncorporeal and invisible, and sur- 
vives the corporeal dissolution. 

But until " spontaneous generation " can be proved 
to be an ordinary natural process, this initiation of life 
in the universe is an epochal event. It is presump- 
tively extra the ordinary course of nature ; it is a mira- 
cle quite as great, perhaps, as revelation ever supposes. 
We submit that thus Professor Tyndall is answered. 

Huxley's Protoplasm. 

It is a signal proof of the brilliant genius and emi- 
nent standing of Professor Huxley that in one fortnight 
he was able to install the term Protoplasm among the 
key-words of the English language and to fill the high- 
er mind of England with excitement at its alarming 
import. His performance was a lecture delivered by 
him in one of the principal towns of England, in which 
he professed to have furnished the demonstration, as 
the final word of science, clothed in drapery of most 



140 Statements : Theological and Ceitical. 



gorgeous rhetoric, of the non-existence of mind except 
as a property of matter. The " physical basis of life " 
is a certain material substance known to science as pro- 
toplasm ; and all thought is but the molecular motion 
of the protoplastic particles. Stripped of all its varie- 
g ited plumage of words and circumlocutions, the skel- 
eton of the argument, according to our poor understand- 
ing, would be as follows — and if it is a very poor 
showing of logic, We believe it to be no fault of ours: 

Protoplasm, then, is demonstrably the "physical ba- 
sis of life," because it exists in all living beings, the 
one identical element, whether beings animal or vegeta- 
ble, whether mosses or men. This protoplasm consists 
chemically of the four elements — carbon, hydrogen, oxy- 
gen, and nitrogen. Now water is, we know, a compound 
of oxygen and hydrogen; and inasmuch, as, if you prop- 
erly mix oxygen and hydrogen, and run an electric 
spark through them, you have water, so if you mix car- 
bon, hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen under the influence 
of pre-existing protoplasm, you get protoplasm. Now 
when you thus get water you do not need to add to it 
verbally or mentally any such term or idea as aqicosity / 
so when you thus get protoplasm you have no need to 
add any such word as vitality. All the properties of 
aquosity are embraced in the simple being of water; 
and all the properties of .vitality (such as thought and 
voluntary motion) are embraced in the very being of 
protoplasm. In your cup you may hold a pint of wa- 
ter; in your fingers you may hold a pound of life. 

To state this argument thus nakedly is, if not to re- 
fute it, at least, we think, to show the absence of much 
need of refutation. It seems sufficient to say that there 
are immense quantities of dead protoplasm, but no such 
thing as dry water. If protoplasm is life, then lifeless 
protoplasm is lifeless life — that is, after you have got 



Life. 



your protoplasm you need to have vitality added to it, 
just as you never need to add aquosity to water. Knock 
a man hard enough and you knock the vitality out of 
him, but not the protoplasm. The universality of pro- 
toplasm in all living organisms only proves that it is 
one of the necessary conditions of the visible manifesta- 
tions of life in our physical world; it does not prove it 
to be one of the necessary conditions of the existence of 
life in the universe. Mr. Huxley's performance has not, 
perhaps, helped the cause of materialism forward one 
infinitesimal step. 

Trinality of Pure Reason, Intelligence, and Vitality. 

The basal oneness of animal and vegetable life pre- 
sents an interesting phase of thought. Whether higher 
life ascends ideally or genetically is a question not dis- 
turbed by such a fact. It must be remembered that 
vitality is not in itself intelligence, but is a basis upon 
which intelligence is overlaid. And the very fact that 
vitality in animal and vegetable is the same entity, 
demonstrates the fact that the overlying intelligence is 
a different and a higher entity. We have, then, this 
column, placing lowest lowest. 

Pure Reason — Solely human. 

Intelligence — Animal and human. 

Vitality — Vegetable and animal and human. 

This is the old trinal philosophy, the philosophy of 
the Old Testament and the New; of Plato and of Paul; 
of the early Christian antiquity and the best modern 
thought; the philosophy that finds in man the trinity of 
body, soul, and spirit. It is upon this philosophy that 
the immortality of man, as distinct from brute, can be 
maintained. Nor is this trinality at all disturbed by 
the fact that the apparent boundary line between plant 
and animal is often crossed or obliterated. For what- 



142 Statements: Theological and Critical. 



ever the form may be, or however un discoverable by 
microscopic or other examination, the slightest element 
of true sensation in the individual renders it an animal. 
The true boundary line may, therefore, be impercepti- 
ble to observation, but is none the less real. 

Animal Mind and Vegetable Vitality. 

If we rightly understand Professor Gray, he main- 
tains that at the bottom the distinction between the an- 
imal and vegetable kingdoms not only is concealed, but 
that it has no existence. At base they are not only aj> 
parently, but really, one. Now to our philosophy, if 
not to our science, not claiming any science, it does 
seem that such a statement cannot possibly be true. 
The difference, we venture to imagine, between an ani- 
mal and a vegetable is the difference between mind and 
no mind y between a certain something and nothing. 
An animal, however low in grade, has at any rate the 
lowest grade of mind, a minimum of sensation. And 
that minimum, according to a distinction elsewhere 
wittily and wisely made by the professor, " though very 
little, is very important." It is a minimum. in a new 
direction; toward intelligence, wisdom, omniscience. It 
belongs to the infinite world of mind, and not to the 
finite world of matter. Where that minimum begins 
physics may be unable to tell us, but has no right to 
tell us that it has no beginning at all. As between the 
vegetable and mineral the great distinction is life or 
no life, so the distinction between animal and vegeta- 
ble is sense or no sense. Life may interfuse with inor- 
ganic matter, and form an ocean of " bathybius," but, 
destitute of both mind and organism, it is below the 
humblest vegetable. And then the so-called " sensitive 
plant," lying upon your warm palm, may mimic a crawl- 
ing creature, yet be no more living than the snow-flake 



Life. 



143 



that melts upon that same palm. The vegetable fly-trap 
may catch its victim ever so expertly, and we may won- 
der at the design that formed so funny a lusus naturm; 
but it no more invades the field of animal life than does 
the steel-spring mouse-trap. It seems to us wonderful 
that our scientists should so often entrap themselves by 
making the word life embrace the idea of mind, falla- 
ciously holding psychology to be but a department of 
biology, which is nothing more than the vicious tenden- 
cy first started by Comte to eliminate mind from the 
world, and leave us nothing but brain and nerve. 



RELIGION AND SCIENCE, 
Divine Progress in Geological Life-history. 

As history is conveniently divided into ancient, mid- 
dle, and modern ages, so paleontology may be roughly 
divided as consisting of paleozoic, mesozoic, and neozoic * 
that is, old-life, mid-life, and new-life ages. 

The Old-life age, beginning with the dawn of minute 
vitalities, covers the ascending stages of crustaceans, 
corals, mollusks, fishes, and amphibians. A humble, yet 
advancing, series of families ! 

The Midlife (mesozoic) agents unfold a scene of gi- 
gantic reptiles, with long, sinuous bodies, and endowed, 
by the savants, with long, crawling names.. These 
groups of vast living structures, with an underbrush of 
lower life beneath them, ruled our crude globe for an 
untold roll of middle ages. But this dispensation went 
down in night. Under stupendous revolutions nearly 
every form of its life perished, and the next draw of the 
curtain reveals a series of new creations. 



14i Statements : Theological and Ceitical. 



The New-life age comprises the reign of mammals, 
beings with nursing milk. An undertone of mammals 
had commenced with, and run through, the whole mid- 
dle age. That undertone was prophetic; but who could 
have interpreted its beautiful prediction that the soft 
and milky breast should be the ruling trait of the new 
life ? The earlier mammals of this age were as gigan- 
tic as the reptiles of the previous. Either from the 
marvelous intensity of the vital power, or the exist- 
ence of unknown conditions, or the fiat of the Supreme, 
the living forms of brute life were of stupendous mag- 
nitude. 

This age is divided into four periods, according to 
their share of the modern life-forms now existing : 
namely, the Eocene, or Dawning-modern ; the Miocene, 
or Few-modern ; the Pliocene, or More-modern ; and 
the Post-pliocene, immediately preceding our entire 
modern. It was during the second of these periods, 
the Miocene, that the greatest abundance of gigantic 
quadrupeds roamed the earth. Dr. Dawson paints the 
Miocene age in vivid colors, believing that European 
geologists have not fully appreciated its glory. If man 
existed at this time (as the Darwinians are vainly anx- 
ous to believe), Dr. Dawson affirms that, being in a gi- 
ant era, he ought to have been a giant in stature. But 
the glories of the Miocene went down under the win- 
try blasts of the Glacial period. An upheaval of the 
arctic regions poured the icebergs down upon the tem- 
perate zones, while a subsidence of land at our zones 
invited an arctic sea, for a period of unknown length, 
over the latitudes of our present civilized life. To the 
.eye of a human spectator, our globe would then have 
appeared a scene of hopeless desolation. But it was 
the darkness before the daAvn. This severe probation 
really rendered the earth more fit for man, and it was 



Religion and Science. 



145 



in the spring which emerged from this winter that man 
appeared. What was the date of that appearance ? 

Dr. Dawson's general answer is: " The time involved 
depends very much on the question whether we regard 
the post-glacial subsidence and re-elevation as some- 
what sudden, or as occupying long ages at the slow 
rate at which some parts of our continents are now 
rising or sinking." He holds this to have been a par- 
oxysmal period, in which formations proceeded at a 
rapid rate for which the arithmetical calculation of 
modern geological progress furnish no analogy. He 
gives several instances in which the stupendous figures 
resulting from such calculations have been signally falsi- 
fied. He denies, therefore, that there is any proof of 
the antiquity of man invalidating the narrative of the 
sacred text. Geology, indeed, reveals a great brief del- 
uge, subsequent to the glacial era and to man's appear- 
ance, bearing a singular analogy to the Mosaic flood. 
The biblical narrative of the flood, with its precise 
dates and minute, formal details, reads wonderfully like 
the log-book of an adventurer in this geological deluge. 

An Anthropoid not a Man. 

Our paleontological friends have had hard grubbing 
in American soil. From the Floridian jawbone down 
to Dr. Abbott's drift flints in New Jersey, the geolog- 
ical man turns up a phantasm. They just get finger on 
his tail, and lo ! non est. And even had they caught 
him, how would they show any historical connection 
between him and any living race ? Scientists should 
not guess. Boasting of their grounds of certainty, they 
must give us demonstration, not conjecture nor proph- 
ecy. Dr. Dawson, in his Archaia, twenty years ago 
stated the probability that anthropoids might be ex- 
humed from the depths of our American soil ; but an- 
10 



146 Statements : Theological and Critical. 



thropoids are not, of course, men. The fox-sized pre- 
decessor of our horse was not a horse. Far less are 
anthropoid apes real men. Man is not only body and 
life and intellect; he is also spirit. The power to chip 
a flint does not prove a man. But, as an eloquent Negro 
bishop once said, " Whoever can lift his hands to 
heaven and say 'Our Father' is a man." The Adamic 
man was not only developed from the " dust " below, 
but endued with the divine " breath " from above, and 
no development from below, no genetic descent, could 
have made him an immortal man without the endow- 
ment from above. The anthropoids described by Gen- 
eral Thomas as exhumed near the line of the North 
Pacific Railroad, with their receding frontals and long 
dog-like, or bird-like, aquiline snouts, may have been 
predecessors of man, genetic or typical, without being 
man. There may be missing logical links, as well as 
missing generative links, in the process of proving pre- 
Adamic man. 

Mortillet is sure not only of the tertiary man ante- 
rior to the stupendous quart ernaiy, but even of the mio- 
cene. We do not quote his proofs, our main object be- 
ing the certain discriminations above hinted. Was the 
fossil man the complete man of our present humanity ? 
Or was he, in fact, a lower species ; an anthropoid, and 
not a man ? If the latter, the Adamic man may have 
no genetic connection with the pre-Adamite, and our 
race may have begun with Adam. 

If even quarternary " man " was not of the same spe- 
cies with our present man, then there properly is no 
quarternary man. And inasmuch as even "the man of 
Neanderthal, of Canstatt, of Enggisheim, of La Nau- 
lette, of Denise," is of very questionable character, how 
do we know that the being intelligent enough to split 
flints by fire or by tapping had a human form at all, 



Religion and Science. 



147 



even rudimentally ? Quantitatively, the beaver and the 
bee have as great an amount of intelligence, although 
qualitatively in different direction. We are, therefore, 
unable to be sure that the flint-splitter was "the pre- 
cursor of man." But even admitting his precursorship, 
he was still an animal, with animal body and intellec t. 
The higher nature, the spirit, was wanting. The being 
may have possessed an animal body, and an animal soul, 
but have lacked the Trvevfia, the transcendent humanity. 
For man was not only made of " dust " and " became a 
living soul," but he " became " so by the inbreathing 
of the Divine. We are still left, then, on this scientific 
admission, ample room to deny that the Mosaic history 
of the Adamic mnn is contradicted. The view of Tay- 
ler Lewis, and later of Mivart, is left unrefuted. Or, 
rather, we may say that the genetic connection between 
Adam and the geologic man remains entirely unproved. 

Man's Immortality Requires an Adam. 
What specially attracts our attention in Mr. G. F. 
Wright's Studies in Science and Religion is its Ameri- 
can measurement of the time of man's existence. The 
New Jersey chipped flints date back to the close of 
the glacial period. They are found on the southern 
margin of the once glacial sheet. How far back was 
that period ? By various measurements, taken in dif- 
ferent sections, it was from eight to ten thousand years 
ago. The men, if men they were, who chipped these 
flints, were, by any existing biblical chronology, pre- 
Adamite. 

And yet we do not see how any Christian evolution- 
ist, who believes in the immortality of man, can well 
" get along without his Adam." As the line of evolu- 
tion marches on, the point of transition is reached when 
the perishable brute instanter becomes immortal man. 



148 Statements : Theological and Ceitical. 



Eternity is all at once done up into his nature. His 
being is reorganized by a power unknown to earthly nat- 
ure and taking hold of supernal things. This can 
hardly be accomplished, in the way Sir Charles Lyell 
suggested, by single geniuses rising above the level of 
the species, as a Milton or a Plato rose above their 
race. The grandeur of the event, whether including 
one representative individual or a whole race, requires 
a grandeur of inauguration. It is placing on our planet 
a something infinitely more valuable than the planet 
itself with all its contents. And that inaugurated im- 
mortal, or body of immortals, is the biblical Adam, one 
or more. 

Feebly and faintly Mr. "Wright suggests and authen- 
ticates this view. He says, " We may distinguish be- 
tween the physical nature of Adam and his mental 
and moral nature; and the spiritual may, for all science 
can [the italics are the author's] show, be as direct a 
gift to the race, in general, as we believe it to be 
to every individual. Also, for our part, we have no 
objection to investing man's creation with miraculous 
elements." But this reorganization of man from anthro- 
poid takes possession of not only soul, but body ; im- 
mortalizing the first and resurrectionizing the last. It 
is the whole man that is re-created. And if our author's 
theology is true, this re-creation, or rather completion, 
of immortal man's creation, is accomplished through the 
power of a divine Incarnation. It is the image of Christ 
completed in man. It seems to us, then, that our author 
would have been justified in a far bolder statement than 
that of a " no objection " to the miraculous nature of 
man's immortalization and a completer enshrinement 
of the conception into the frame of his biblical the- 
ology. 

We believe that the Genesis history of the creation of 



Religion and Science. 



149 



Adam implies his threefold nature, body, soul, and spirit : 
somatic, psychic, pneumatic. It narrates the infusion 
of the divine breathing or spirit by which the merely 
psychic being becomes the pneumatic Man. The pro- 
gramme of that consummation is given in Gen. i, 26-31 ; 
its finality in Gen. ii, 7. Before that inbreathed spirit, 
that being, like other animals, sprang up from terrene 
nature quickened by the divine fiat. By that infused 
(not overlaid) spirit the soul was impregnated with im- 
mortal life and the body rendered exempt from disin- 
tegration. And so for the first time Man in the image 
of God was completely created. 

Now "can" any science show that the chipper of 
primeval flints was more than a psychic being ? Except 
that his work was in a more man ward direction, does it 
show more intelligence, even in kindling a fire, than that 
of the beaver, or that of Sir John Lubbock's ants ? Was 
the chipper capable of the thought of the Infinite or the 
truly Ethic ? Was he pneumatic Man ? 

And, again, can any historic connection be shown be- 
tween the chippers and the present races of men ? Does 
not the very term prehistoric indicate that the merely 
psychic races may all have perished ? Evolution, as 
stated by its advocates, abounds with cases of the entire 
destruction of immediately preceding races, produced 
by "environments," or by the destructive power of the 
higher race ; why not similar blanks between the " cave 
man " and the later man ? And, again, evolutionists 
affirm that there are now races having no idea of God. 
How know they but those are psychic men perhaps in- 
capable of religious conception, or to be rendered capa- 
ble only by being elevated into the constituency of the 
first representative pneumatic Adam? 



150 Statements : Theological and Critical. 



Structure of the Mosaic Cosmogony. 

We firmly believe in the canonical authority of the 
first chapter of Genesis, just as we believe in that of the 
Apocalypse; but we no more believe in the literal seven 
days of the former than in the literal seven trumpets 
of the latter. Both seem symbols of successive stages 
of advancement in a great process. The six days are 
the six unfoldings of the created system in the natural 
order of contemplation, and probably in the natural order 
of creative development. First the three compartments 
are created, ether, water, and land ; and then their three 
occupants, the luminaries, the water tribes, and the land 
inhabitants ; and the sacred seven is consummated by 
the great repose or permanence which endures until now. 
And of that process and of that permanence every week 
and every Sabbath are our blessed reminders. 

Professor Murphy's treatment of the Edenic state, the 
fall, and the flood, furnishes suggestive remarks and lu- 
minous discussions. Eden is the center of the human 
creation. The serpent possessed by the spirit of evil is 
exalted to a supernatural position, from which he is re- 
manded back to his natural degradation. Here Dr. 
Murphy omits to compare this instance with the cases 
of demoniac possession. But why not consider the ser- 
pent the mere form in which Satan made himself visi- 
ble (as he doubtless assumed a human form to our Sav- 
iour), and then consider the divine curse as expressed in 
symbolical terms, drawn from the serpentine guise in 
which he is found ? Dr. Murphy recognizes the impor- 
tance of Gen. iii, 22-24, as proving that Adam's immor- 
tality of body was not absolute and intrinsic, but de- 
pendent upon his use of the tree of life. Thence we 
understand how he was deathless in spite of the fact 
that animal tribes had died for ages. Thence, too, Dr. 



Religion and Science. 



151 



Murphy explains antediluvian longevity, the vital power 
of the early use of that tree remained unspent for centu- 
ries. To this we may add, that connected with the tree of 
life as its center was the entire bloom of Eden ; and by 
their proximity to Eden, through divine favor, the patri- 
archal line, from which Christ descended, may have pos- 
sessed a longevity unknown to the tribes which scattered 
farthest abroad. Is there any analogy between the in- 
tense primitive vitality which produced the gigantic 
geologic forms and that which produced the antedilu- 
vian longevity ? 

Had man not sinned, by Dr. Murphy's view, the tree 
of life was so capable of expanding its influence as to 
vitalize the entire unfallen race. If the flood was local, 
as he supposes, the earliest and farthest wandering 
tribes — the " Turanean " — may have originated earlier 
than that event ; for we cannot believe, with him, 
that the antediluvian world was not very populous. 
It must also result, and is doubtless true, that the 
earth underwent no great change from the curse at 
the fall, though it lost the renovating influence of an 
overspreading Eden. Nor does it seem clear that we 
can accept the conception of some German theologians, 
that the disorder of the earth is due to the fall of Satan, 
f< r the same mixture of order and disorder reigns, so 
far as our observation can reach, through the entire ma- 
terial universe. 

On the hypothesis that the chapter is simply a pict- 
ure of the creation as previously outlined in the divine 
mind, Mr. Rorison's analysis of the six creative days, 
slightly modified, might be thus exhibited. 

The six days may be set in double threes : 

1. Light. 1. Lights. 

2. Watery Expanse. 2. Water animals and birds. 

3. Vegetative earth. 3, Land animals — Man. 



152 Statements: Theological and Critical. 



It will be seen that each digit of the first column cor- 
responds with the same digit in the second column. 
Each digit in the first row denotes a created residence ; 
and the same digit in the second row denotes its created 
occupant. Light is created at figure 1 in the first 
three, and the luminaries as its tenants at figure 1 of 
the second three. Second in both are the waters and 
the expanse tenanted with water animals and birds. 
Third in both is the prepared earth .with its highest 
order of tenantry. 

In both rows there is a parallel descent, the three 
grades of which are, the empyrean, the medial, and the 
terrene ; the ethereal, the fluid, and the solid ; the skies, 
the atmosphere, the earth. The narrative goes upon 
the plan that the whole system was constructed the first 
three days, and stocked with occupants the second three 
days. A similar instance of double threes will be 
found in the Lord's Prayer, as presented in Whedon's 
Commentary, page 93. In the first three of the prayer 
also will, we think, be found nearly the same descent — 
celestial, medial, terrestrial. It will be seen that, accord- 
ing to this analysis, the plan of the creative days is not 
naturalistic but artificial. This, if so, would seem to 
close the issue between the " cosmogony of Moses " and 
the geology of science. 

We give our decided though not irreversible approval 
to Mr. Rorison's exposition of the Mosaic creation. The 
analysis of the interior structure of the first chapter 
of Genesis clearly demonstrates to our view that it is 
constructed on other than scientific principles. All the 
ingenious theories by which it has been forced to agree 
with science are purely unscientific dreams. The six 
days are divisible into two sets of three; the former 
set presents the receptacles, and the latter set the occu- 
pants. The number seven symbolizes (see Whedorts 



Religion and Science. 



153 



Commentary, Luke x, 13) God's development of cre- 
ation. Its sublime imagery and majestic rhythm en- 
title it to be styled the Psalm of Creation. And we 
heartily repeat a former thought of our own, not as a 
fact, but as a favorite fancy, that it may have been 
composed by Adam, and chanted in the Church of the 
patriarchal ages. 

The rhythmical character of that passage, its stately 
style, its parallelisms, its refrains, its unity within itself, 
all combine to show that it is a poem. Analysis of its 
interior structure exhibits a most artificial synthesis, 
founded upon well-known sacred numbers. It is, there- 
fore, a grand Symbolic Hymn of the Creation, composed, 
perhaps, by Adam himself, and handed down to Moses 
through the line of the patriarchal Church, to commem- 
orate the great fact that this world is the work of a 
triune God. We no more believe that it is a detail of 
the process of creation, as furnished by modern science, 
than that the description of the New Jerusalem is a true 
physical picture of the heavenly state. The Bible 
opens with a primordial apocalypse, and closes with a 
terminal apocalypse. And this parallel is curiously 
indicated by the fact that the same symbolic numbers, 
in different combinations, prevail in both passages. The 
seven (3+4) of the creative record is paralleled by the 
twelve (3 x 4) of the pictorial New Jerusalem. 

Resemblance Between Religion and Science. 

The religion with which Mr. Bixby {Similarities of 
Physical and Religious Knowledge) proposes to recon- 
cile science is a religion of a very scant pattern. It 
rejects the Trinity, the incarnation, and all those spe- 
cific and inspiring truths with which a Wesley or a 
Moody stirs the hearts and reforms the characters of 
men. He rejects miracles, and so holds religion within 



1C4 Statements : Theological and Critical. 



the bounds of lower nature. He hustles the Bible into 
the same crowd with the Vedas and the Koran. He 
deals unceremoniously with the Church and all her his- 
tory. If his were all the religion that can be reconciled 
with science, his work of mediation we should hold to 
be of little value. Happily, however, his argument as 
truly authenticates the Trinity with all its results as 
it does his own slender creed. 

He compares science and religion in respect to their 
methods, their objects, and their degrees of certainty, and 
finds that science can in these vital respects claim no 
exclusive superiority over religion. 

1. As to methods. It is untruly claimed that science 
sustains herself in the use of sense-observation, induc- 
tion, deduction of experimental tests, and verification, 
while religion deals in intuitions, authority, and analo- 
gy. Science plentifully relies upon intuition, and, in 
fact, geometry and arithmetic are purely intuitional sci- 
ences. We know the existence of an external world only 
by intuitional faith. Then there nre what he does not, 
but that we would, call Primordial Assumptions rather 
than intuitions, that lie at the basis of all science. Such 
assumptions, uncognizable by sense, are the indestructi- 
bility of matter, the uniformity of nature, the laws of 
motion, the persistence of force, and gravitation. These 
principles cannot be proved; they are not intuitively 
seen, like a geometrical truth, but they are assumed by 
faith, and must be assumed before we can commence 
any course of physical reasoning. 

2. As to objects. It is falsely claimed that science 
deals with pure mundane and sensible objects, while re- 
ligion alone mounts into the immaterial, the transcend- 
ental, and the infinite. Science dwells amid invisibili- 
ties and infinities. No physicist ever saw that para- 
bola which he affirms that a rifle-ball describes; no 



Religion and Science. 



155 



chemist ever saw oxygen. There are musical notes 
inimitably above and inimitably below what human ear 
has ever heard. Who ever saw a molecule, much less 
an atom? Geometry is familiar with infinities. Does 
not science deal with those unseen infinities, time and 
space ? Who ever saw gravitation, and who doubts its 
unlimited extension? What about force ? Whoever 
saw it ? If it be limited to objective matter, how does 
it pass through pure space ? And who can draw a 
boundary line around its extension ? Who has seen, 
can measure, can reconcile the contrarieties of the lu- 
miniferous ether? And we may here add, as Mr. Bixby 
does not, why should the mind which dwells amid these 
mysteries and irreconcilabilities launch any sarcasms at 
the Trinity or the Incarnation ? Trained by conceptions 
like these, science ought readily to accept those divine 
mysteries transmitted by the Church of ages, as veri- 
fied by the sacred records, from the Incarnate himself. 

3. As to certainty. It is falsely claimed that science 
is exact, certain, immutable, and religion uncertain and 
changing. All science is but approximation. The best 
geometrical figure falsifies its definition and its name. 
Induction is a process of examining a few specimens 
and guessing at all the rest. Kepler's laws are not ex- 
actly true. The minutest atom indicates convexities 
that science can only conjecture. There is no perfect 
time measure; no perfect space measure; no " physical 
constant" whatever. Nobody knows that the sun will 
rise to-morrow. And then science is continually false 
and changing. Where is astrology, alchemy, and the 
elixir vitcef The rise and fall of so-called sciences are 
like the rise and fall of empires. The corpses of dead 
sciences, killed by time and truth, strew the pages of 
history. The scholar who learned his science fifty years 
ago must largely unlearn it and learn it anew to-day. 



156 Statements : Theological and Critical. 



And, now, in what divine contrast witli these muta- 
bilities of science stands the immutability of the cen- 
tral theology of the Catholic Church of all the Christian 
ages ! From the time of Christ himself down to this 
hour that theology in its great structural outline has 
never changed. The dogmas of God, infinite, all-wise, 
eternal ; of the Trinity, three personalities in one es- 
sence; of the Incarnation, true God and true man iden- 
tified in one Christ; of the fall and the redemption; of 
the forgiveness through faith in Christ; of the immor- 
tality of the soul and eternal retribution; all these have 
stood through more than eighteen centuries unchanged. 
They will "stand acknowledged while the world shall 
stand." Temporary and local additions have been often 
made to them. Special views and theories have often 
been proposed in regard to them. But bring us to-day 
the catechism of St. Petersburg, the decrees of Trent, 
the articles of England, the platform of Geneva, and 
the symbols of Augsburg, and these dogmas are all 
there. St. Irenaeus and John Wesley earnestly alike 
maintained them. This theology stands "as it was in 
the beginning, is now, and ever shall be." Subordinate 
differences, leaving free play for human thought, there 
ever have been. The same article has worn a different 
phase to different ages and sections of the Church. 
And the body of articles is held generically rather than 
specifically and minutely. Yet in their great generic 
range they have ever been the same. The changes de- 
manded by advancing science, be it well noted, are not 
changes in Theology, but changes in special biblical 
Exegesis. In the latter, changes ever have been fre- 
quent. Various interpretations of many parts of the 
sacred text have left lanre scope for commentary and 
discussion. Blundering scientism has often mixed its 
alloy in with those interpretations and produced blun- 



Religion and Science. 



157 



aering exegesis. The false science of the day, incorpo- 
rated with such interpretation, induced Lactantius and 
others to deny that there were antipodes, and later in- 
terpreters to deny the motion of the earth. For these 
errors the scientists are to blame. And exegesis holds 
herself free to borrow new light from any quarter, 
whether from history, psychology, physiology, or any 
other science. And in all these departments, burdened 
as the text has been by the errors of science formerly 
imposed upon it, she sets her interpretations right when 
science confesses her mistakes and comes right. These 
were aside errors, having nothing to do with the immut- 
able type of Christian theology. That stands unshaken 
and indestructible. 

And from her high place of calmness this theology 
can utter free words of cheer to the true scientist, the 
earnest delver after truth amid the visible works of 
God. The abused theologian is often himself a pioneer 
in physical discovery. The biblicist is not compelled 
to revise his interpretation of the text of the Bible half 
as often as the scientist is compelled to revise his inter- 
pretation of the text of nature. These reinterpretations 
of nature leave nature unchanged; so do our reinter- 
pretations of the particular text leave our immutable 
theology untouched. 

Conflict between Christianity and Science. 

Dr. Draper's book, History of the Conflict beticeen 
Science and Religion^ is, rather, an indictment against 
the Romish Church for hostility to science, especially 
to cosmogonical science, based upon her interpretation 
of the biblical cosmogony. It was in astronomy, main- 
ly, that the " conflict " existed. Copernicus showed 
that the center of things was not earth and man, but 
the sun; and Copernicus was silenced. Galileo showed 



158 Statements : Theological and Ckitical. 



that the earth moved around the sun, and not vice versa/ 
and Galileo was imprisoned for nine long years. This 
indictment is fully sustained. The prison of Galileo is 
an imperishable disgrace, not to Christianity, but to 
that ecclesiastico-political power which Luther and 
many a learned Protestant have held to be the incarna- 
tion of Antichrist. Yet Dr. Draper's dreary picture of 
the papal ages seems to us overdrawn, and unjust both 
to the papacy and the mediaeval Christianity. It is 
really as one-sided as the declamation of a no-popery 
zealot. It is a profound question, How came it that 
these " dark ages " were the mother of modern Europe ? 
To deny a large thanks to the Church, nay, even to the 
popedom, is want of candor. And when Dr. Draper 
says that the good done by the Church was unintended 
by the Church, he forgets how self-love and interest are 
blended in all human goodness. Dr. Draper writes his 
book, doubtless, to do good; but if we were to say that 
he wrote for reputation, from love of intellectual power, 
from ambition, we should tell the truth, provided we 
did not affirm these to be the only motives, and declare 
that good-doing is with him unintentional. Ulphilas 
and Boniface, and other mediaeval missionaries, who 
Christianized the pagans of Europe, were men of pure 
and earnest motives. Charlemagne, whose sword 
brought the wild Saxon tribes to order, and to possible 
civilization, meant both to rule and to do good. The 
Church of the Middle Ages, from mixed motives took 
the barbarians of Central Europe, unified them, spirit- 
ualized them, developed them, and contributed largely 
to the modern European system. Her monasteries were 
the schools, her doctors the teachers, her clergy the 
scholars of those ages. She founded universities, and 
promoted the arts and sciences. Painting and archi- 
tecture nourished. The first use of the newly-discov- 



Religion and Science. 



159 



ered types was the issue of a printed Bible. To fling 
all this into an invisible background, and to bring out, 
as the entire picture, Koine's hostility to a true cosmog- 
ony, is falsification. It is (as we said of a previous pro- 
duction of the same author) casting history into the 
mold of a theory. 

In the geological part of the great questions of cos- 
mogony, the discussion came before Protestant Chris- 
tianity. It is during the present century that the antiq- 
uity of the earth and man, and the nebular theory, have 
come before the churchly mind. And here Dr. Dra- 
per, more candid than many of his scientific brethren, 
acknowledges that there has been " moderation," and 
that it has been merely a " controversy " rather than a 
" conflict." This appears to us rather a sign that our 
scientific brethren are at last beginning to feel that the 
public mind does not admire the bitter style in which 
they have treated the religious thinkers of the age. 
They have carried this style so far that it is becoming 
a clear conception that it is not the clergy who are the 
"bigots" and the "persecutors." 

Dr. Draper imagines that astronomy has given Chris- 
tianity a great shock by abolishing the earth-center 
and establishing the sun-center of the cosmos. Man, in 
the vastness of the new immensity, shrinks to an atom 
— a nothing. Dr. Draper leaves the matter there. A 
cold chill is left upon the heart with the feeling that 
we are out of the notice of God, sinking like a snow- 
flake in a vast icy ocean. Why could he not have the 
soul to add that, nevertheless, astronomy herein undoes 
all the mischief she does? For she gives the full con- 
ception of an absolutely omnipresent God, to whom the 
infinitely little is as truly present as the infinitely 
great; and whose infinity is so perfect that he is able to 
take as complete care of me as if I were a planet or a 



160 Statements : Theological ant> Critical. 



solar system; or as if I were the only thing in the uni- 
verse besides himself. Dr. Draper can show us how 
Force and Law regard not magnitudes nor minitudes 
as ruling both with equal absoluteness. Why can he 
not see the same truth to be applicable to omnipotence 
and omniscience ? If the telescope reveals an immensity 
of vastness, the microscope reveals an immensity of lit- 
tleness, with law and wisdom ruling over both alike. 
And grant for once that man is immortal, and you 
make him worth more than a solid universe of dead mat- 
ter, or a vacant universe of pure space. 

Dr. Draper tells us that " the most solemn and sacred 
of Christian doctrines, the atonement, . . . originated 
among the Gnostic heretics." We are amazed ! We 
had supposed that for ages the Hebrews had observed 
a " great day of atonement," in which the doctrine of 
substitutive atonement was concreted in the ceremony of 
the scape-goat. We had thought that th« sacrificial vic- 
tims suffering for the sin of the offender formed a large 
share of the Old Testament Levitical ritual, as duly and 
fully expounded, and installed in the Christian system 
by the author of the Book of Hebrews. And when 
John the Baptist spoke of "The Lamb of God," and 
that he " taketh away the sin of the world," we have 
dreamed that the atonement was traced by him to the 
Old Testament. And when the victim himself said, 
" This is my blood offered as a ' ransom for many,' " we 
see a divine authorship of the doctrine of the atone- 
ment. And we are likely still to retain these notions 
in spite of the light shed upon our minds by that illus- 
trious biblical luminary, Professor Draper. 

Dr. Draper sets Providence and Law at antithesis, 
as being opposites; and he tells us that "the priest- 
hood " prefer the former. The providence which he 
credits to "the priesthood" implies intervention, inter- 



Religion and Science. 161 



position, miracle, all of which the scientist considers as 
opposed to law. Now, as great a scientist, perhaps, as 
Dr. Draper, who also belonged to "the priesthood," 
namely, the late President Hitchcock, of Amherst Col- 
lege, once showed, with what we think great clearness, 
that Law and Providence are at one. Providence rules 
by law; and its interpositions are in accordance with 
law. If there be an infinite and eternal Mind, who acts 
by the law of perfect wisdom, it may be that he will 
never interfere, and that physical causations will take 
an eternal, unvaried course; and it may also be that he 
will always intervene when the law of divine wisdom 
suggests. My clock strikes but once an hour; the clock 
of the cosmos may strike but once in ages. And when 
that hour of the ages comes to its end, the divine hand 
intervenes in the train of events, as the hour-hand of 
my clock intervenes in the train of the minutes and 
seconds. 

"What a glorious army of martyrs this Church of the 
Scientists is. It sends out a cry of " persecution," " per- 
secution," and you would think by the howl and growl 
they make that their books were burned, and their per- 
sons were obliged to lurk in sheep-skins and goat-skins in 
the fastnesses of the mountains and the dens of the 
earth. The ferocious theologians are often after them 
with a Bible in one hand and a fiery fagot in the other. 
And the joke and felicity of it is that they have all the 
glory of this martyrdom without the slightest incon- 
venience of martyrdom. When the old Christians suf- 
fered martyrdom, it was an awkward endurance. The 
Roman ax did chop; the beasts of the amphitheater did 
bite and draw actual blood; the fire of Nero did burn 
to ashes. But as for these scientific martyrs, their furi- 
ous theological executioners string them up to the very 
staple of the sallows without the slightest squeeze of 
11 - 



162 Statements : Theological and Critical. 



the neck; the pincers and thumb-screws torture them 
without the slightest pain to their protoplasm. Even 
after they have been burnt at the stake, and are in the 
condition of cinders and ashes, they quietly sit as pro- 
fessors in Christian universities, and issue volumes 
against Christianity ; they assemble great congregations 
in a nominally Christian city, and lecture against what 
they suppose to be theological dogma, to be applauded 
to the echo by the public press. 

For the last thirty years — ever since its start by Sir 
Charles Lyell, we believe, in the first edition of his 
great work on geology — we poor Christian preachers 
have lived with the most direful scientistic thunder- 
bolts rolling over our heads, denouncing us as " perse- 
cutors." We are arraigned and condemned without 
"benefit of clergy," as making war on science, and 
crushing the hapless and helpless scientists. Now, as 
we are rather a feeble, unarmed folk, and belong to a 
class that in past ages has done more for education and 
science than all the other classes put together, we are 
inclined to ask, What are the import and amount of all 
this hue and cry? We take it to be just this: Science 
is bound, when she propounds any claim to a new discov- 
ery, to demonstrate it against all previous opposite opin- 
ions. Such previous opposite opinions may be based upon 
imaginative conceptions ; or upon the immediate percep- 
tions of the senses ; or upon the teachings of former 
science ; or upon the interpretation of religious records; 
or upon the dogmas of a false, or partly false, revela- 
tion. Now these previous opinions have their rights. 
They have a right to sit in judgment upon the newly- 
propounded discovery, and to claim that it demonstrates 
its positive reality before they can be required to sur- 
render their own. They have a right to say to the sci- 
entists: "Gentlemen, it is false that we have any 'con- 



Religion and Science. 



1(53 



flict with science,' or any war with discovery. Go and 
work with honesty and zeal in your own fields, irre- 
spective of any previous conceptions, and learn the 
truth as it is. But when you have arrived at a conclu- 
sion, do not shirk scrutiny. Do not whine and whimper, 
and cry 'persecution,' because we put your announce- 
ments to the severest tests. Do not turn into fierce 
martyrs because we refuse you credit until you have 
given us, what you are bound to give, demonstration. 
When that comes, and not till then, your hypothesis is 
science ; and every opposed opinion accepts its claim, 
and crowns you, not with the amaranth of martyrdom, 
but with the laurel of successful discovery." 

Theology stands, in this respect, on the same ground 
as any other pre-established opinion. She holds real 
science to be but another word for ascertained truth. 
Before that, no anterior opposed opinion can stand. 
We are all learners. Advancing developments, new 
science, have often poured new power and grandeur 
into theology, new and larger meaning into the text. 
The millennium to which we look consists of that grand 
blending of scientific and religious truth which, in God's 
own time, shall finally bring all human belief to itself. 

Dr. Draper has given us a fearfully frigid book. It 
abolishes the fatherhood of God, and gives us the mod- 
ern scientific blind god, Force. He abolishes providence 
and gives us law, consisting of the invariable succession 
of physical causes. He points us to the sublimity of 
dying without hope, as without God, in the world. 

The Created World-system and Christianity. 

What is the best theory that the science of our day 
can frame of the origin, structure, and destiny of the 
material universe as a whole ? This is the large ques- 
tion, very large, which Dr. Winchell's World-life aims 



161 Statements: Theological and Critical. 



to answer. Worlds and universes have been built by- 
theoretic thinkers, in chronological succession, during 
the past ages of active thought. They have been large- 
ly of an a priori character, yet gradually modified to 
truth by the advance of science. And now, at this day, 
so great a mass of scientific material has been piled up 
by the illustrious sons of science, that our author takes 
his stand upon it as a high pedestal, and throws out his 
bold conjectures, in lines of logical probability, so 
grandly as to sketch the rational outlines of a whole. 
He can tell us with a certainty, not wholly absolute, 
yet furnishing a reliable repose for our faith, what the 
substance, the growth, the history, the decline, the 
death — without a resurrection ? — of the stupendous but 
not infinite Pan. 

It is, we may say, in a special sense, a serious sub- 
ject. In spite of the deep interest we feel in knowing, 
yet, bare of all living beings, the material universe, 
with all the sublime vastness of its magnitudes, move- 
ments, and spaces, is a bleak machine. Fires and blazes 
and heats enough it has ; but they are not of the sort 
to warm the heart. And the fact that there hangs over 
the whole a destiny of final dead-lock, that all its move- 
ments are but " funeral marches to the grave," sheds 
over the whole an aspect of disaster and doom, without 
the dignity and human interest of the tragic. It is 
simply a vast machine coming to a general hitch from 
which there is no known extrication. All its parts re- 
main; but with so perfect a countercheck that not ft 
particle can move. Not a pulse can beat, not a breath 
can heave. It still encumbers space, but as a worthless 
hulk ! Biichner, the frank atheist, leaves it there through 
all the eternities of the future, and seems to jubilate 
over the prospect. Spencer suggests a hope of revival 
on his theory of pulsation and remission. Dr. Win- 



Religion and Science. 



165 



chell, who claims to be the first announcer of this sad 
finality, even earlier than Spencer, has a resource in 
Theism ; but does not tell us the process by which Theos 
restores the dominion of motion and inaugurates the 
new alcjv. Even our theology and our religion shudder 
over this catastrophe, and our spirits wonder what is 
to become oT us ensconced in the solid bulk of this uni- 
versal iceberg. And yet, somehow, our little Greek 
Testament seems to anticipate such remissions and pul- 
sations when it talks of divine existence and even hu- 
man penalty as enduring elg rovg aiuvag tojv aicbvuv. 
And, truly, what danger to the body of* the resurrec- 
tion from any material evolutions ? Spirit-ruled" and 
able to rule its own corporeity, it stands unharmed amid 
"the crash of matter- and the wreck of worlds." Per- 
fect master of its own sensations, it refuses to suffer any 
pain from heat or cold ; perfect master of its own mo- 
lecular organism, it repels or evades all danger from 
collision. "The mind," says Milt<»n, "in its own place 
and of itself can make a hell of heaven, a heaven of 
hell." 

The world-stuff, or substance out of which our sys- 
tem is made, is found by our author in various degrees 
of aggregation, as meteors, comets, and nebulae, and the 
problem is first to show how these are modeled into 
planetary forms. This leads to a discussion of the pri- 
mordial nature of the world-stuff, and the theory dawns 
into view that the some sixty so-called elements of mat- 
ter are in simplest state a primitive one — " a semi-spir- 
itual ether." All material things are then but the fold- 
ings and combinations of this primordium. "As a 
vesture shalt thou fold them and they shall be folded." 
In the Second Part we have a full discussion and main- 
tenance of the Nebular Theory and the formation of 
planets and solar system on that hypothesis. He em- 



166 Statements : Theological and Critical. 



braces that view under the conviction that it requires 
more credulity to reject than to accept it. Our planets 
and their sun are specimens of the entire plan of the 
universe. 

The Comparative Geology of the Planets, like the 
parallel columns of a polyglot, present but a varied rep- 
etition of the same story. Beginning with a "fire-mist," 
which (the apparent solecism is the author's) is " cold " 
and "dark," there are, successively, conflagration by 
condensation, a surface crust from surface cooling, a 
temperate inhabitable period, a refrigeration, and final 
frozen stereotype. Our moon has gone through this 
process; and our earth may look upon the dead lunar 
surface as a middle-aged gentleman gazes upon the pale, 
cold face of a dead baby and reads the image of his own 
destiny. And here, Dr. Winchell, with a human and * 
Christian interest, raises and discusses the question, 
whether the sister worlds of astronomy are inhabited ? 
Shelley, the poet, once said, that astronomy amply re- 
futes the notion of God's begetting a son from a Jewish 
maiden. The greatest of Chalmers's productions was 
his astronomical sermons, preached to reconcile the vast- 
ness of the universe with the incarnation and the atone- 
ment. Whewell, on the other hand, undertook to solve 
the theological problem by denying the population of 
any world but ours. But modern theology prefers to 
believe in a vast republic of living worlds, divided into 
planetary provinces, with some common interest, under 
the Supreme Ruler. Dr. Winchell, while furnishing 
admirable statements of the vast variety of forms suited 
to a wide variety of existences on our earth, points out 
the non-necessity of requiring that all living, intelligent, 
or even responsible forms, must be conformed to the hu- 
man model. He reminds us that it is simply an affair 
of attaching intelligence to a material form; and there 



Religion and Science. 



167 



is no limiting the variety of methods and forms with 
which they may be done. " Why might not psychic 
natures be enshrined in indestructible flint and plati- 
num ? " We read, a few months since, a Swedenborgian 
speculation that the form of a human soul is globular. 
And that curiously reminded us that, years ago, we had 
occasion to illustrate, colloquially, the difference be- 
tween brute instinct and human reason, and were led to 
say that the former radiated from its center in a few 
far-reaching directions, while the latter emitted its radii 
equally in all directions. We thus made the human in- 
tellect a globe ! How easily might there be a race of 
living, brilliant globes, like far-seeing eye-balls, blazing 
with far-reaching intelligence, floating at their own 
sweet will in ether or even in pure space, unchilled by 
cold or unmelted by heat, and unknowing of dissolu- 
tion. And then the nereids and mermaids of the mythol- 
ogies tell us how easily watery Jupiter may be stocked 
w r ith living beauty. And Dr. WinchelPs reminder that 
there may be beings with more than Ave, six, or seven 
senses, suggests that even the bleakest age of a planet or 
of the moon may be truly invested with an unseen glory, 
and be the residence of unseen populations and "prin- 
cipalities and powers." Just so the white, dry, cold 
skeleton in the anatomical room was once clothed with 
beauty and occupied by intelligence. And what is this 
bleak machine universe but a blank skeleton? It is 
good for nothing, and it might just as well be so much 
space if it be not subservient to the existence and hap- 
piness of living beings. A living canary bird is of 
more value than a dead universe. 

Dr. WinchelPs last utterances, as here presented, on 
the commencement of the visible life-period on our 
globe, are very noteworthy. How long since the first 
incrustation of our globe commenced ? Mivart ciphered 



168 Statements : Critical and Theological. 



that Darwin's natural selection, by his own statements, 
required twenty-five hundred millions of years since 
life first dawned on earth. Professor Thompson dis- 
turbed our evolution brethren profoundly by telling us 
it could be but fifty millions. Then it was announced 
as but fifteen; and then ten millions. Dr. Winchell now 
ciphers it at three millions! Truly, that crushes natural 
selection to nonentity. We may rest with La Conte's 
" paroxysmal evolution," but the paroxysms must be 
very spasmodic. Or if, with a late writer, we style it 
"saltatory evolution," evolution by jumps, it must be 
a very nimble jumper. On the whole we may, perhaps, 
fall back on Dawson's creation in accordance with evo- 
lutionary laws. More important than even this limita- 
tion of earth's Zoic Period is the late closing of the 
Glacial Period, and consequent late creation of man. 
For independent measurements, by American geologists, 
so agree as to form a medium estimate of six or seven 
thousand years. Does not science begin to make her 
bow to Moses? 



CHRISTIAN EVIDENCES. 
Responsibility for Moral Beliefs. 

The Westminster Review, not long ago, affirmed that 
no one could be responsibly guilty for rejecting a his- 
torical fact, such as Jesus and his divinity can only 
claim to be. Then Dr. Southside cannot be responsible 
for disbelieving the enormity of American slavery, for 
that is a historic fact. Then the murderers of Jesus, or 
of Socrates, or of John Huss, cannot be to blame for not 
recognizing the fact that their victims were excellent 
men. Most principles which men reject or accept can 



Cheistiax Evidences. 169 



be viewed as historic facts, past, present, or future, or 
one, or all. Most principles which men accept or reject 
are, however apparently abstract, probably found only 
in some historic concrete. The wickedness of an assas- 
sination, a treason, a robbery, is a historical fact; and 
yet the perpetrators are bound to recognize and accept 
the truth, and obey the obligation that truth imposes. 

God is a historical fact through eternal ages. His 
existence, his administration, his incarnation, are all his- 
torical facts, which only need in like manner to be prop- 
erly authenticated to impose a corresponding obligation. 
The truth of Christ's divine mission may just as clearly 
authenticate itself as the guilt of American slavery; it 
may impose obligations as much more imperative as it 
is a more stupendous fact; its rejection may aggravate 
guilt in the degree of the importance of its prevalence 
over the world; and that same rejection, inexcusable in 
its nature, may produce ruin as a natural consequence 
of its rejecting the Redeemer and his redemption. And 
if the aggravation of the guilt of that rejection be pro- 
portioned to the importance of the prevalence of that 
religion, and that religion be for the redemption of the 
world from ruin, then does it follow, as by an involu- 
tion, that the guilt of that rejection deserves the ruin 
in which it tends to involve the world. 

If a man be responsible for the guilty use of his 
hand, is he not responsible for a misuse of his brain? 
If the unholy use of the eye be guilty, is not the dis- 
honest use of the intellect? Are all our powers respon- 
sible save our truth-seeking faculty ? And how know 
we that God has never propounded a test-truth to pro- 
bationary men, by the acceptance or rejection of which 
the honesty of each man's truth-seeking faculty is infal- 
libly decided? When such a test-fact is presented, the 
act of rejection reveals the reprobate, decides his moral 



1 70 Statements : Theological and Critical. 

ruin, and works a series of disastrous and responsible 
consequences. Such a test-fact the divine Incarnate 
does announce himself to be, and surely no more suita- 
ble test-fact in the universe can exist. For a discrimi- 
nation am I come into the world, that they which see not 
the truth they seek might see it / and that they which 
see with a truth-avoiding spirit might be made, in fact, 
what they are in purpose, blind. John ix, 39. Under 
that assumption, his rejecters are by himself and his apos- 
tles, throughout the New Testament, placed under the 
ban of moral condemnation. Rejection of him is the 
parent sin which produces all other sins, and prevents 
their expiation or pardon. "He that believeth not 
shall be damned." Some are led away by the error of 
the icicked. There is a deceivableness of unrighteousness. 
There are those who deny the Lord that bought them. 
In fine, " There is a way that seemeth right to a man, 
but the end thereof is death." Nor do the New Testa- 
ment writers ostentatiously display their friendship for 
the deniers of the great Test. Neither St. Peter, St. 
Jude, nor St. John speaks blandly of them. They know 
no innocent unbelievers, no excusable infidels. In fine, 
pleasant as the sunny theology may seem, which holds 
antichristian doctrine to be the venial error of a man as 
honest and as well off as believers, it has no authority 
in Scripture nor in reason. There is a solemn, awful 
side to God's word; a dark and terrible phase in God's 
moral system, at which it becomes us to tremble; nor 
can we ignore it wisely, any more than we can ignore 
the tragic depths of woe that lie entombed in the whole 
groaning creation that travaileth until now. 

Thus much, indeed, is true, that crimes of action nre 
tangible by the magistrate; sins of opinion, however 
responsible, like dispositions of the heart, are safely 
amenable to God alone. This arises, not from the dif- 



Christian Evidences. 



171 



ferent guilt of the two, but from the imperfection of 
the magistrate. Punishment of pure opinion is doubt- 
less persecution; not because opinion is less guilty by- 
nature or by consequence than action, but because the 
punishment of opinion belongs to an infallible judge. 
Yet when it comes to argument and moral criticism, 
we cannot hold our difference with a Theodore Parker, 
a Dr. Bellows, or a David Hume, to be as unimportant 
as a variance in a matter of taste or science. It is a 
difference high as heaven and deep as hell. That dif- 
ference, however it justifies not hatred, involves moral 
reprobation. Nor is this a time to concede the venial- 
ity of the skeptical error preached from the pulpits of 
our contemporary Antichrist. When eloquent semi-infi- 
dels, with Rev. prefixed to their names, propose to in- 
augurate in our midst their " Broad Church," it is in 
perfect charity that we hold their edifice to be "the 
synagogue of Satan." The inscription upon its arch- 
way, placed by their own hands — Broad — may well be 
held as the first word of the monitory line: " Broad is 
the way that leadeth to destruction, and many there 
be which go in thereat." 

The North American Review suggests the same great 
question in a review of the " Discussions " of Mr. Chauncey 
Wright. Mr. Wright was an extreme, an ultimate, sensa- 
tionalist. He rejected the supersensible, and so rejected 
not only God, but Herbert Spencer's unknown absolute, 
as a gigantic phantasm, and reduced all knowledge to 
sensible experimentalism. He was a genetic evolution- 
ist, yet rejected the doctrine of "the survival of the 
fittest;" and so, also, rejected the beneficent idea of 
progress, which, in the reviewer's view, is necessary to 
a just deduction of Theism from evolution. And to 
this "dreary landing-place," he was brought, as the 
reviewer thinks, by his " quest of truth." 



172 Statements: Theological and Critical. 

Inferentially the reviewer then adds: " Few expres- 
sions have been more fanatically abused than the 
phrases, 'An evil heart of unbelief,' and 'The fool 
hath said in his heart, there is no God.' No doubt 
there have been many in ancient times who ignored a 
supreme Ruler because their deeds w 7 ould not endure 
inspection, and their desires and passions were too gross 
to be indulged without compunction while God was in 
their thoughts; and in these latter days there may be 
as many who wish Christianity to be false and Theism 
an illusion, because the former interferes with their 
wickedness by teaching retribution, and even the lat- 
ter might imply responsibility and a hereafter. But 
to class all skepticism as proceeding from a wicked 
heart, and all doubt of a God as a certain mark of 
sinful folly, is pure fanaticism. There are at this day 
many unbelievers whose characters are as lofty, and 
whose lives are as pure and useful as the lives and 
characters of most orthodox believers; and among this 
number we must reckon Chauncey Wright." 

Now, before we can assign Chauncey Wright this 
" lofty " moral position, we must have answer to the 
question, Are there such sins as sins of the spirit, in 
contradistinction to sins of the flesh ? Is there any re- 
sponsibility for the use or misuse of our intellectual 
powers ? A murderer, a traitor, is guilty of sin of the 
flesh, and our reviewer w T ould utter no apology for such 
a villain. But what shall w r e say of the intellectualist 
that promulgates the sophism that led the murderer to 
the murder, and the traitor to his treason ? The gross, 
external, muscular sinner is thus cruelly damned; while 
the refined, internal, cerebral sinner, though really the 
primely responsible, is glorified. Are we, then, account- 
able only for the deeds of our hands, and not for the 
exercise of our brains? And all this resolves itself 



Christian Evidences. 



173 



into the one great question, a question which the tran- 
siently great men of our day would do well to ponder 
— Are we in any way responsible for our moral beliefs? 

On the reviewer's authority we doubt not that Mr. 
Wright performed with more than average complete- 
ness the duties of equity and courtesy to his fellow- 
men. But we ask — and our reviewer is no atheist- 
did he perform his duties to God ? Was reverence to 
the divine in his heart, prayer to the Supreme upon his 
lips, communion with the Holy Spirit in his spirit? 
Who was it that said, " Thou shalt lone the Lord thy 
God with all thy heart ? " Has the Decalogue any 
authority, or is the table of duties to God, forming 
half that Decalogue, broken in pieces? Is it true, or 
is it not, that God is the great good; indifference to 
God the great apostasy; separation from God the great 
damnation ? If these are truths they cannot be sacri- 
ficed in compliment to the good behavior of Henry 
Wright. They are not to be judged by Henry Wright; 
they it is that must judge Henry Wright. What right 
has any man to suppress all the high and holy intuitions 
that God has bestowed upon him; to exclude the aspi- 
rations of the spirit toward the divine Spirit; to cast 
off fear and restrain prayer ; to give heed only to those 
lower faculties that tell of matter and its properties, 
and then come forth to the world and proclaim that 
God does not exist ? It was this suppression that made 
Mr. Wright the " fool." It was " an evil heart of un- 
belief." And we do class all " skepticism " that rejects 
God as revealed to us " as a certain mark of sinful 
folly." Atheism is in itself a heinous sin. It is not 
a crime which man may punish, but a sin which God 
will judge. And the apostle truly and justly pro- 
nounces a final judgment upon "those that knoio not 
God, and obey not the Gospel of his Son." If that 



17-i Statements: Theological and Ceitical. 



is "fanaticism," it is the "fanaticism" of the entire 
Bible. That may be no argument with our reviewer, 
but there is a remnant, and a pretty large remnant, 
too, who believe that the grand old Bible will stand 
when the North American Review (as well as our own 
Methodist Quarterly Review) is forgotten. 

Definition of Miracles. 

Mr. Edmund Kirke gives us what is by many es- 
teemed the latest and most satisfactory definition of a 
miracle. It is " the action of a higher law upon a lower 
one, by which the lower is for the time neutralized and 
suspended. Thus, whenever we lift a hand, we over- 
come the law of gravity ; that is, our will suspends for 
the time the natural action of matter." Now we sim- 
ply avail ourselves of this statement of the explanation 
of miracle, to take issue witli it, and furnish what to 
our own mind is the true one. Mr. Kirke's statement 
overlooks the difference between a law of nature and a 
process under a law; the former is never suspended or 
neutralized; the latter is often suspended, or rather in- 
terrupted and modified. 

Suppose a feather descends by gravitation until it 
alights upon the surface of a tin roof. A process is in- 
terrupted, namely, of the feather's descent to the earth 
under the law of gravitation; but the law itself contin- 
ues in full force, confining the feather upon the roof. 
The law of gravitation does not require that the feather 
shall go to the earth through the impenetrable roof. 
The law is completely fulfilled by the feather's lying on 
its surface. Every law of nature in the existing condi- 
tions is fulfilled, and none interrupted, suspended, nulli- 
fied, or overcome. Then suppose a wind blows the 
feather horizontally from the roof, and it falls to the 
ground. A process under law, namely, of the feather's 



Christian Evidences. 



175 



repose upon the roof, is interrupted ; but still no law is 
suspended. The interruption is produced by the incom- 
ing of a new antecedent, the horizontal force of the 
wind. Two processes, then, namely, of gravitation and 
horizontal force, take place under two different laws, 
modify each other, and result in an intermediate course 
of things in the movements of the feather, hut no law 
is suspended or neutralized. The feather is under the 
complete operation of all the law, both of gravitation 
and lateral force, belonging to the conditions of the 
case. A process is modified, interrupted, deflected, but 
no law is suspended. 

If a little stream of water is flowing down an inclined 
surface, and Mr. Kirke, interposing his hand, deflects 
the stream into a new direction, a process is interrupted, 
but no law is suspended. So if Christ, by a word of 
power, changed the direction of the wind, and arrested 
the storm, a process, a certain procedure of the wind, 
was interrupted and modified, but no law was suspended. 
If he changed the current of the human blood, and so 
arrested a disease, a process was modified, but no law 
suspended. The interposition of Christ's power was 
simply the introduction of a new antecedent or cause 
by which the process was interrupted and changed. 
That new antecedent acted under laws. For there are 
laws of the divine nature as well as of finite nature; 
laws of mind as well as laws of matter; laws of will as 
well as laws of intellect. When Mr. Kirke lifts his 
hand he does not " overcome a law of gravity," he sim- 
ply interrupts and changes a process under that law, 
namely, of inert repose of his hand. His soul acted in 
accordance with law in willing the lift of the hand. 
And so in the whole process, law was always fulfilled, 
and never suspended. What, then, is a miracle ? 

A miracle is the interruption of a process under nat- 



176 Statements: Theological and Okitical. 



ural law by the interposition of some higher power; 
meaning by higher power, a power above the forces 
known by experience to form the system of our mun- 
dane nature. 

Jesus, by his miracles, suspended no law. He only 
interrupted and modified processes by interpolating, 
from above, a new antecedent, changing the course 
which we experiential ly know that things would have 
taken without his interference. 

Miracles no Contradiction of Law. 

Make to Professor Tyndall the concession that Lucre- 
tius demanded, " that the atoms move in tune " to the 
music of law, especially of a sufficiently flexible law, 
and God is superfluous. He will fix you up a first-class 
universe without any theistic aid. In his Religion of 
Chemistry Professor Cooke showed how elementary 
substances, with their repulsions and attractions, were 
all wonderful evidences of a great constructive mind. 
But Professor Tyndall sees nothing but the wonderful 
harmonic yet unintelligent marches of the atoms. The 
atoms, spontaneously, take their due places and form 
a crystal. By the same self-marshaling, the atom, each 
for himself, nimbly trips to his proper position, and 
the blade of grass, the cabbage, the oak, is formed. 
By the same spontaneous, self-arranging movements, 
the atoms conspire into a human body. And when at- 
oms all marshal themselves aright, and a perfect body 
is formed, would it not, if exposed to the vital air, be a 
living body ? Undoubtedly. Nothing but sound body 
^nd fresh breath are necessary to a live man. To all 
this, which is truer than revelation, we must learn to 
listen, and brace our nerves heroically and tonically for 
far more terrible things to come. But, sooth to say, it 
is all, at last, the same trite old Lucretian materialism 



Christian Evidences. 



177 



and atheism over again, expressed in the terms of mod- 
ern science. The science is new and vigorous, but the 
atheism is senile and decrepit. 

The identity of the old issue may be seen in Mr. 
TyndalPs arraying the immutability of the laws of nat- 
ure against the offering of prayer for rain. We grant all 
that any physicist, as a physicist, and within the limits of 
physicism, can claim for the immutability of the laws of 
nature. By the light of experience and intuition he ana- 
lyzes those laws and pronounces them intrinsically im- 
mutable. Granted. Intrinsically, in and of themselves, 
they are immutable. That is, in and of themselves they 
possess no power to stop or vaiy their own course. 
They contain in themselves no provision for self-sus- 
pension or self-deflection. That is all physicism, within 
her own limits, and exercising all the range she pos- 
sesses, namely, of examining the laws themselves, can 
say. But mark ! the question of miracles is not a Ques- 
tion of the nature of natures laws. The question still 
remains untouched. May not the course of events un- 
der and in accordance with those immutable laws be in- 
terrupted or deflected by the interposition of a power 
from without or from above mere nature? This ques- 
tion, by its very terms, is without the limits of physi- 
cism. It takes no issue wiih the immutability of nat- 
ure's laws. The question now is, as to the existence 
of that power above nature, and as to His nature, and 
wh.it He is likely to do; and then is opened a new field 
of inquiry by different faculties, and with a different 
set of facts, which inquiry, as it spontaneously grows, 
becomes theology. Professor Tyndall argues the whole v 
question within the limits of physicism, just as if there 
were no God above physics. Next it is to be inquired, 
Has such interposition ever, in fact, taken place f and 
that is a question of history. 
U 



178 Statements: Theological and Ceitical. 



Mark, the question is not now whether the laws of 
nature have ever been suspended, but whether an event, 
or course of events, under those laics has ever been modi- 
fied by the interposition of a superhuman volition? A 
suspension of a law is one thing; a modification of an 
event, or course of events, under law, is another. There 
are laws which cannot be suspended, as the law of cau- 
sation, or the laws of mathematical relations. When 
a ball is thrown from a player's hand, the laws of nat- 
ure would carry it to the utmost exhaustion of its force. 
Should another player's bat stop it midway, would that 
law be suspended ? Not at all. The course of the ball 
and its stoppage by the bat are both under nature's 
laws. If an Homeric hero hurls his javelin powerfully 
enough to reach his foe, but the goddess Pallas turns 
it from its course, no law is suspended; only a new an- 
tecedent comes in, and, under law, modifies the course 
of events. So if, by the unchanged course of nature's 
law Peter will be drowned, and Jesus interposes, the 
miracle is no suspension of nature's law. And even if 
God at the word of Joshua arrested the sun in his course, 
there was no more a suspension of law than when the 
player arrested the ball with his bat. Simply a new 
force comes in, and under the law of forces the course 
of events is changed. 

Dr. Tyndall expends several useless pages in show- 
ing that the law of atmospheric pressure, for instance, 
first explained by Torricelli and confirmed by Pascal, 
has never varied. The laws of gravitation are by ex- 
perience proved invariable. Undoubtedly; and mira- 
cles not only admit such invariability but assume it. 
Were there no invariable law there could be no miracle. 
There could be neither any course of events to inter- 
rupt, nor any law of forces to interpose the interrup- 
tion. For the very interruption and interposition must 



Christian Evidences. 



170 



take place and proceed from, the interposer through the 
course and force of law. The whole question, then, the 
conclusion again returns, is removed from the court of 
physicism, and becomes a question as to the existence 
of a competent and probable imposer, namely, a God, 
and as to the ascertained historical fact of the interpo- 
sition. 

A miracle may be an occurrence in the interests of 
the highest order. In the gradation of nature we find 
matter, chemical force, vegetable life, animal life, spir- 
itual life, in which the lower exist and work for the 
higher. If, now, disease and disorder attack the high- 
est rank, as they have done in man, God may use the 
lower laws and forces of nature for its restoration to 
health and order if he sees it best, even though it be by 
miracle. The possibility of it ought not to be ques- 
tioned by a believer in a personal God. Physical sci- 
ence never has proved, and never can prove, its impossi- 
bility, while its facts do show supernatural intervention 
on his part. There was, for instance, during unnum- 
bered ages, an established order of things under the 
laws of nature, when suddenly by the divine volition a 
living man, thinking, willing, moral, and free, was 
brought into being. Here was a supernatural new be- 
ginning in nature by divine interference. And cannot 
he who created nature and its laws use them and modify 
them, if he pleases ? Every plan of man to which he 
gives effect in action uses these laws, counteracting 
them if he holds up a stone, combining and utilizing 
them if he builds a steam-engine; thus from time to 
time making new beginnings, and exhibiting what is 
the very essence of the supernatural. God did this in 
the creation of man by his power and will, and by the 
same power and will he manifested himself by miracles 
in the supernatural beginning of Christianity. Hume 



180 Statements : Theological and Ckitical. 



argued that miracles are contrary to experience, and so 
incredible. Well, it is contrary to experience, in Hume's 
sense, that man should come into the world in any other 
way than by ordinary birth, which would prove that 
man has existed from eternity. But science proves that 
somehow there was a first man, which, on his theory, 
ought to be incredible. And, after all, the world does 
believe the most astounding things on trustworthy testi- 
mony, and it is contrary to all human experience that 
such testimony, multiform and cumulative, as we have 
for the Christian miracles, should be false. 

Dr. Chalmers was the first, we believe, to note that 
Peter, in predicting the saying of the " scoffers " that 
" all things continue as they were from the beginning of 
the creation," gives the argument of Hume against all 
miracle. It is the argument of the visible permanence <>f 
the order of nature. This continuous fact of the actual 
visible and reliable uniformity of nature's order, is for- 
mulated by some presumptuous scientists into such a law 
as to exclude the Creator from interposing in the very 
succession of events which his divine will carries on. 
But every sensible theist can understand that things 
would stop of themselves if not energized by the con- 
stant influx of divine energy, and it is nonsense to 
doubt whether He who continues the series cannot in- 
terpose his power and act between the events that com- 
pose the series. God interposed when he originated 
terrene life; he interposed when he first created man; 
he interposed by Christ's first advent; he will again in- 
terpose at his second advent. God's clock is a clock of 
ages; after a long period it strikes; and skeptics fix 
their eyes on the length of that period, and forget that 
the stroke will ever again come. When God's hour is 
complete, it is his own hand that strikes. 



Christian Evidences. 



181 



Supernaturalisms and Miracles. 

Henry More, Wesley, Dr. Bushnell, and others, agree 
that supernatural manifestations, the projection of su- 
perhuman agencies into our human sphere, so far from 
being, in accordance with Hume, contrary to experience, 
are verified by thousands of recorded and constantly 
occurring experiences. It is a most vicious circle to 
maintain that supernaturalism is contrary to experience 
by rejecting every experience that is a supernaturalism. 
Nor is it just or logical to say, that if you admit the 
truth of any modern narrative of the supernatural you 
must admit the whole body of superstitious marvels; 
for all history and all narrative must be tested by a dis- 
criminating criticism, eliminating fiction from truth ; 
and when these narratives are so tested, there is an im- 
mense residuum which is rejected not by the fair rea- 
son, but by the persistent will of the skeptic. It has 
been maintained that Protestant theologians, compelled, 
as they fancied, to reject the miracles of Popery, have 
fearfully played into the hands of infidelity by so stren- 
uously denying the validity of evidence as to shake the 
credibility of the Scripture miracles ; but to the Papist 
we may reply by admitting any duly authenticated 
Catholic supernaturalism, and then showing quite as 
good and quite as numerous miracles among Protest- 
ants. Sporadic supernaturalisms, in countless numbers, 
occurred among the pagans. They are occurring every 
day, among the religious and the irreligious, in the form 
of dreams, second sight, presentiments, etc., sometimes 
carefully concealed in silence for fear of ridicule, some- 
times circumstantially narrated in our secular newspapers. 

How can miracles be specially adduced in favor of 
Christianity ? We answer, the term miracle is often 
given to all supernaturalisms, whereas we would limit it 



182 Statements: Theological and Critical. 



in a strict sense to a particular kind, namely, to a super- 
naturalism visibly originated and performed at the will 
of a visible agent in attestation of a religious truth, sys- 
tem, or mission. A supernaturalism, like a dream or a 
presentiment, coming upon a man from an unseen 
source, rather than performed voluntarily by him, is no 
miracle. Miracles, therefore, are in fact mostly limited 
to Scripture history. Moses performed one miracle of 
larger physical magnitude than any one performed by 
Christ; but his miracles were specifically limited and 
prescribed to him. Christ alone appears to be full 
master of all miraculous power at will. He stands alone 
in the attitude of claiming and wielding at pleasure any 
power he pleases in proof of his supreme identification 
with God himself. The human system, the elements, 
the gates of death and hades, nay, the powers of hell, 
submit to his sway and volition. He stands, therefore, 
without a rival ; and when we superadd the identifica- 
tion of his divine person by antecedent prophecy, the 
majesty of his personality as it presents itself in the 
gospel picture, and the wonderful effects of his life on 
human history, it is absurd to bring any supernatural- 
ism, however clear its reality, into competition with his 
divine supremacy. Quite the reverse. Every other visi- 
ble manifestation of the supernatural serves to remove 
the presupposition against miracle, and especially against 
the supreme miracle of Christ claiming to be God-man. 

Many Protestant theologians deny all modern or ex- 
tra-scriptural supernaturalism, not only from fear of 
Papal miracles, but because their views of "an inter- 
mediate state" are in danger of being contradicted. 
Those who deny an intermediate state can scarce admit 
a message from a disembodied spirit. Others fear a 
contradiction to their particular views of the conditions 
of the intermediate state. We entertain neither of these 



Christian Evidences. 



183 



fears. That there is an intermediate state, that there 
may occur conditions under which a spirit in that state 
may make communications, true or false, to a living in- 
dividual possessing the proper predisposition, is to our 
view uncontradicted by Scripture. Nor have we mot 
with any tolerably authenticated narrative of the kind 
that at all disturbed our theology. 

Conscious Experimental Evidence. 

Dr. Fisher's Faith and Rationalism sets in a strong 
lisdit the value of the evidence for Christianity resting 
on its intrinsic excellence as directly looked at by the 
appreciative soul. We need not say that Methodists 
have laid very earnest emphasis on the self- evidencing 
power of the Gospel. To " experience religion " has 
been, from the beginning our stereotype phrase. And 
we expected that "experience" to result in a "know," 
and not in a " hope " or a guess. The felt presence of 
God is to us the final demonstration for the divine per- 
sonality. The consciousness of pardon and peace, the 
assurance that we are a child of God, the realized wit- 
ness of the Spirit, are with us blessed inheritances from 
"the fathers." Professor Fisher endeavors to sustain 
the general view by the testimonies of Augustine, Ber- 
nard, Coleridge, Schleiermacher, and others ; but of the 
more effective expositions of Wesley, Fletcher, and Wat- 
son he seems unaware. 

What we most disapprove in this little tract is its 
setting the conscious experimental evidence of religion 
in opposition to the historical and logical, instead of 
presenting them as co-ordinate and harmonious recip- 
rocal conditions to each other. Historical Christianity 
is largely the basis and body of that religion which 
evidences itself to the soul. Prophecy nnd miracles 
are the base of the entire superstructure; and though 



184 Statements : Theological and Critical. 



the superstructure is higher than the basis, it has no 
right to attempt to kick the basis from under itself, 
and undertake to stand on a stratum of thin air. The 
rejection of miracles is cultivated by some thinkers 
with a fine aristocratic air ; and a sneer at plain, old- 
fashioned William Paley generally points the sarcasm 
at " Christian evidences." It was Coleridge who im- 
ported that cantilena into our English thought ; but we 
frankly say that we consider one Paley worth four 
and twenty Coleridges " all baked in one pie." We 
were in our early days, induced by the eulogies of 
President Marsh and others, an extensive reader, but 
never a follower or admirer, of the intuitional opium- 
eater, having better guides for both our faith and phi- 
losophy. The sneer at Paley is a sneer at Him who 
came on earth girt with an array of miracles, himself 
embodying all miracles in himself. When John the 
Baptist doubted his Messiahship, what was his reply ? 
"Go and show John those things which ye do hear 
and see: the blind receive their sight, and the lame 
walk, the lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the 
dead are raised up, and the poor have the Gospel 
preached to them." And he then poured forth his 
upbraiding upon the near cities that had disbelieved 
in spite of his "mighty works." How could a divine 
personage descending from heaven to earth authenti- 
cate himself except by supernatural deeds and words ? 
And how could these be authenticated to others save 
by narrative and history ? When, therefore, Dr. Fisher 
quotes with approbation Coleridge's fanatical ejacula- 
tion: "Evidences of Christianity ! I am weary of the 
word," he is more Coleridgean than Christian. Evi- 
dences of Christianity founded the Christian Church 
and perpetuated its existence on earth. 

To show the unwisdom of a reliance upon miracle 



Christian Evidences. 



185 



history, and logic, the professor quotes the fate of Uni- 
tarianism, which built itself solely on this basis, yet 
found a progeny of infidel errors spring from its own 
system. But how ? Not by a generative derivation 
from that method, but by a categorical rejection of it, 
and a taking of intuitional grounds. Theodore Parker 
and George Ripley formed their religions by the direct 
intuitional gaze both at the evangelical system and their 
own. Taking his intuitive spy-glass, Mr. Parker elimi- 
nated from Christianity all but four great self-evident 
truths. And the tendency of the professor's over-em- 
phasis of the intuitive evidence, and assigning it a false 
relative position, is to subject religion to every man's 
whim, labeled as "intuition," and tends generally to 
launch the public soul in the same boat with Carlyle, 
Dean Stanley, and Max Miiller. And when we notice 
that a large share of the semichristianity at the pres- 
ent day is intuitional, we can hardly recognize the pro- 
priety of bestowing the epithet " rationalism " upon the 
holding the truth of Christianity as based fundamental- 
ly upon its historical supernaturalism. There was once 
in our collegiate class in Paley's Evidences a young 
man who at the beginning of the course of recitations 
was a skeptic, and at the close a believer. Very soon 
afterward he went to the place of prayer, and avowed 
that, as now he believed Christianity to be true, he was 
bound by common sense to become a Christian. That 
man is now a Christian bishop. Dr. Fisber may think 
he acted rationalistically; we think he acted rationally. 

A Paleyan Argument. 

There is a very interesting undesigned internal trait 
in the Book of Genesis, which we think few persons 
can examine without a deep intuitive feeling of the 
truth of the narrative. Let any man compare the state 



186 Statements : Theological and Critical. 



of Egypt as visited by Abraham with its state as visited 
by Joseph, and note the progress in wealth and power 
during the interval. The Pharaoh of Abraham appears 
not very greatly the patriarch's superior; and the pres- 
ents he makes to Abraham are of a singularly rural 
character. But the Pharaoh before whom Joseph is 
summoned is a magnificent monarch, whose presents 
are of a regal character, whose establishments are upon 
a munificent scale, and who requires a statesman of 
large views for his prime minister. And yet the differ- 
ences of the two appear, not from formal description, 
but inferentially, by comparing groups of incidental 
facts. The perfect absence of all purpose, the natural 
keeping of each separate group, and the characteristic 
differences between the two, carry a force of conviction 
to the mind, very difficult to resist, of the genuinely 
historical character of the narrative.* 

Historic Christianity. 

Historic Christianity is in our possession, embodied 
in the Holy Scriptures, and traceable, in a luminous and 
unmistakable succession, back to the divine Christ him- 
self. The Church of all sections holds those Scriptures 
in its hand historically authentic, and a train full and 
strong of her master-minds extends from Christ to the 
present hour, showing that while the Church has been 
the historic custodian of the Scriptures, the Scriptures 
are the charter and master of the Church. A scheme 
of Christian doctrine there is, embodied in the creeds 
of all the great Churches, ever having been claimed to 

* Abraham is said, on the authority of Josephus, to have taught 
Pharaoh Acthoes and the Egyptians arithmetic, on bis visit to Egypt 
about 2010 B. C. It is a somewhat remarkable coincidence, men- 
tioned by Osburn, that before Abraham's visit there is no record, 
whatever, of any king or subject, having date; but thereafter "dates 
are not uncommon," and continued to the end of the dynasty. — Eds. 



Christian Evidences. 



187 



be authenticated by Scripture, of which the Nicene 
Creed is a fair average representative, and which is 
held by the Church of England, and by the forty vari- 
ous confessions of Christendom. This is our concrete, 
incisive, historic Christian faith, which undeniably did 
not exist in the year of Rome 747 (the birthyear of 
Christ), and did exist in the year of Rome 847 in its full 
and graphic completeness. This faith, according to all 
the contemporary documents, came from the lips of the 
supernatural One, whose voice was self-pronounced to 
be the voice of God. 

Such is historical Christianity. It is definite, struct- 
ural, demonstrable. With all the variety of freedoms 
within its area, admitting full play for idiosyncrasies 
and live discussions, we can draw a rigorous outline 
around it. By the definiteness and vigor of that bound- 
ary line we can unceremoniously cut off the ancient 
Ebionitisms and Gnosticisms, as well as their modern 
identities, the Unitarianisms, Rationalisms, and semi- 
infidelities that hover around her margin and illegiti- 
mately claim the Christian name. With that same 
sharp historic outline we cut off the modern accretions 
which Rome has attempted to gather on the faith, upon 
the historic beginning of which we are able to put our 
finger and say they did not exist until such and such a 
time. Thus do we eliminate every foreign element, 
and have an amply firm ascertainment of the specific 
identity of our Christianity. 

And now in what relations does this concrete struct- 
ural Christianity stand to its various rivals, presented 
by modern skeptical thought, such as Religious Senti- 
ment, Intuitions, Philosophical Speculation, Modern 
Civilization ? The relations, we answer, of real subor- 
dination, or of hopeless inferiority. The so-called 
Religious Sentiment, which reveals itself as the basis 



188 Statements : Theological and Critical. 

of the various religious notions of different ages, na- 
tions, and individuals, is nothing but man's suscepti- 
bility to spiritual truth. As a mere susceptibility, 
and not a formative activity, it can give no positive 
shape to notions, but receives them as fancy or circum- 
stance collects them upon its receptivity. Historic 
Christianity is entitled to take them as crude matter 
and give them its own shape. The Intuitions, when 
their respective validities are ascertained, are taken by 
Historic Christianity, checked in their overgrowth, sup- 
plemented in their deficiencies, assigned their proper 
place, and embodied into her own system. Philosophic- 
al Speculation, which begins with subjective ideas, con- 
tinues in subjective ideas, and ends in subjective ideas, 
always undoes itself, being ever obliged to acknowledge 
its own incapacity for settled result, and has in fact 
arrived at the full confession of its own invalidity in 
the philosophy of Comte. Historic Christianity, as an 
objective fact, acknowledges no identity with the ab- 
stractions which Coniteism justly banishes from exist- 
ence, but asserts her positive place in a true catholic 
positive philosophy. Christ is as true an historic char- 
acter as Julius Caesar; and his true Christianity, as a 
structural dogma, is as historical as the Roman Empire: 
with the existence of either " speculation " has nothing 
to do. Even Comte does not expel history from the 
domain of true knowledge; 

Three Witnesses to Religious Truth. 

It is by three great witnesses that we attain unto 
religious verity, the Word, the Church, and the moral 
Consciousness, and these three are one. 

The Word is the great current of spiritual thought 
running through the written text. Save the Decalogue 
alone, the text is mainly human, and in what propor- 



Christian Evidences. 



189 



tions the human and the divine are mingled is a prob- 
lem not wholly soluble. We know the text as it stands 
is in many cases incorrect; we are often unable to be 
sure of perfect accuracy of the historic statements in 
non-essential particulars. We have inherited from ul- 
tra-Protestantism, Puritanism, perhaps too mechanical 
a biblical theory, as if every chapter and verse were 
written on stone by God's own finger. Admitting text- 
ual error only where it is demonstrated, it is neverthe- 
less often much easier to the penetrative student rather 
to rest his mind upon the great currents of spiritual 
thought (which is the soul of the text), in which all the 
ages of the holy have sympathized and been spiritually 
identified. We are then secure from panic as if all 
were lost if there be passages whose perfect accuracy 
may be fairly questioned. 

The Church is revealed to us in the history of Chris- 
tian men, organizations, and doctrines. This gives us 
historical Christianity. Woe to the man who " will 
not hear the Church," For, first, the Church is the 
great author, preserver, and interpreter of the Word. 
The volume of the book of the Word has lain in the 
ark of even the corruptest Church of Christendom. 
Based upon it, secondly, and found in it, is a great out- 
line type of holy doctrine: the Trinity, the Atonement, 
the Sacraments, and the Retribution, from which no 
private interpretation must vary. In that great tyte 
of doctrine, and even in one great type of ecclesiastical 
organization, Irenseus, Chrysostom, and John Wesley 
essentially agree. There is a great truth contained in 
the profound maxim, What has every-iohere and always 
been believed by those who hold the supremacy of the 
Word is true. This may not apply in exegesis. There 
may be texts which the great body of the Church 
has wrongly interpreted. There may have been ten- 



190 Statements : Theological and Critical. 



ets in regard to physical and cosmical things, and out- 
side the limits of pure theology, in which every indi- 
vidual of the Church was mistaken. But within her 
limits the Church does not err. 

The Consciousness, duly regulated by the Word and 
the Church in regard to spiritual truth, and exerting 
itself in honesty, is right. The two regulatives serve 
to secure from fanaticism and rationalism, while the 
due exercise of the spiritual consciousness brings home 
the power of truth upon the soul. Thus under this 
great trinity of the Word, the Bible, the Church, the 
great sacramental body of believers in the Bible, and 
the earnest conscience of the individual, the Christian 
man rests secure of truth and salvation. 

The Destructive Criticism based on Antisupernaturalism. 

The latest and most destructive theory is that of 
Graf, sustained by Wellhausen, according to which the 
Old Testament is mainly the work of Ezra and his com- 
peers after the captivity. The leading characters of 
old Hebrew history are myths. The stories of Abra- 
ham, the patriarchs, the prophets Elijah and Elisha, are 
legends. Of course so sweeping a monstrosity, such a 
massacre of the history of this wonderful people of the 
Messiah, does not stand unchallenged. There are Chris- 
tian scholars amply competent to meet the onslaught. 
Our great Old Testament Commentaries — Lange and 
The Speaker's — perform well their part. Nor are we 
fearful of any surrender or in haste to make any conces- 
sions to the spirit of a bold and licentious "criticism" 
on the sacred canon. We purpose to " hold the fort." 

The underlying secret of all this recent movement is 
the dogma of antisupernaturalism. With all the ardent 
faith of a devotee the critic first assumes as an axiom 
the fatality of physics and the absolute impossibility of a 



Christian Evidences. 



191 



supernatural event. There cannot be a miracle, either 
of action^ or of prophetic foreknowledge. In regard, 
then, to the biblical records, the problem is not to as- 
certain whether they are true or not ; but, assuming 
their untruth, to explicate how they came into existence 
and credit. To secure the triumph of the antisuper- 
natural axiom, the whole literature of a people, stand- 
ing through ages, is to be remorselessly ground to pow- 
der. The axiom will not admit that prophecy prefigured 
either the person and history of the Messiah, or the 
miracles of the Messiah himself. The absurdity of the 
processes by which the conclusions are attained, and 
the monstrosity of the conclusions themselves, are not 
fully felt until the whole stupendous abolition is com- 
plete, and then comes a revolt of the common sense. 
Father Hardouin and Bishop Colenso are found to be 
twin theorists. 

But it is not the Bible, the Church, and the religion 
alone that are swept by this axiom of unfaith. Nature 
is by it reduced to a mechanism, and God to a superflu- 
ity. The issue then is the Bible or atheism. And with 
the Bible and Theism goes immortality; and man is 
reduced to the mere animal. Our purest sentiments 
become coarse and brutalized, our highest aspirations 
are bent downward. It is a battle for our highest nature. 
Nor will this degradation stop in thought, philosophy, 
or religion alone. It demoralizes and brutalizes private 
and public character and life. It engenders ultra-de- 
mocracy, anarchy, and communism. Atheistic revolu- 
tion is the penalty; from which there is no recovery but 
on the high plane of a firm religious faith which Christ 
and the Bible alone present. 



192 Statements : Theological and Critical. 



The Authority of the Bible. 

"The Bible is the word of God;" or, "The Bible 
contains the word of God." Which of these two 
propositions is true ? If the former, then the Bible 
is our master ; if the latter, then we are master of the 
Bible. If the former, then the evangelical theology 
stands, the vehicle and the regulator of Christian feel- 
ing ; if the latter, Rationalism gains the ascendant ; 
and after, for a while, in deference to evangelicism, 
displaying a fine glow of devout feeling, it will soon 
dissipate its vague emotionalism and relapse into cold, 
hard Sadduceeism, that is sure of nothing, and ready to 
admit itself to be little better than Atheism. 

The author of Liber Librorum is yet in this first stage 
of devout rationalistic evangelicism. He may person- 
ally remain there. But for those who adopt his views, 
his abolishment of the ties that bind to evangelicism 
opens the sure downward path. Theodore Parker, with 
his rare talent, could use his intuitional rationalism as 
an instrument to stir the emotions ; but when he 
departed no successor could wield his wand, and his 
flock has vanished to the winds. Wesley took the 
evangelical - biblical theology ; he roused the hearts 
therewith of his age, and his instrumentalities in the' 
hands of his successors have formed a flock upon whose 
fold the sun never sets. 

For those who complain that we have no criterion by 
which to distinguish the authoritative from the un- 
authoritative, he asserts that the true heart does possess 
a " verifying faculty." That verifying faculty is " reason 
enlightened by the Holy Spirit." This, he holds, is safe: 
for it puts the testing power into the hands of the regen- 
erate, and only of the regenerate who are conscious 
of being "enlightened by the Holy Spirit." And un- 



Christian Evidences. 



193 



doubtedly where this " faculty " does pronounce a passage 
uninspired, the inspiration may fairly and safely be sur- 
rendered. But how shall the test be tested ? Once admit 
that authority deserts some parts, and who will feel him- 
self bound to wait for the decision of this author's test? 

To our own view, it is the authority of the Bible over 
our faith which is, even before the matter of inspira- 
tion, the first and most important question. The authority 
of the Old Testament we hold to be mainly founded upon 
the New Testament. Christ did quote the Old Testa- 
ment as a final authority both for himself and his hearers. 
All the New Testament writers occupy the same posi- 
tion. That a statement is in the Old Testament, in 
whatever part, does, with Christ and his apostles, render 
it a decisive authority. No one ever imagines, when 
Jesus quotes, that he is liable to the reply that it is an 
unauthoritative part. No doubt all sides held that au- 
thority to belong only to the original true text, as it 
came from the hand of the primitive writer. The real 
Old Testament is assumed as authoritative in the New; 
and the same Lord Jesus Christ is the voucher for the 
authority of both Testaments. The contemporary 
Church of Christ, to whom the apostles spoke and 
wrote, endowed by him with the gift of the discerning 
of spirits, really did by spontaneous concurrence accept 
the New Testament canon as a perfectly true, complete, 
and unquestionable expression of its religion. Hereby 
having the authority of both Testaments sanctioned 
and settled, its inspiration is a secondary question ; 
important and profoundly interesting, indeed, but in- 
capable of disturbing the firmness of our reliance upon 
every part and particle of the true text in matters of 
faith and doctrine. 

For the absoluteness of the authority of every genu- 
ine part and particle of the Bible over our faith, it is 
13 



194 Statements : Theological and Celtic al. 



unnecessary to affirm the same mode, or the same de- 
gree, of inspiration for every portion. The Jewish 
Church held to four great methods. The celebrated 
"John Smith, of Cambridge," wrote an essay expound- 
ing and maintaining these four methods ; and it is 
noteworthy that Mr. Wesley inserted Smith's essay 
in his Christian Library. We can easily conceive, 
indeed, a high state of spiritual inspiration, circum- 
scribed within religious limits, highly and perhaps per- 
fectly authoritative within its sphere, yet perfectly con- 
sistent with mistake regarding a secular or historical 
fact. Stephen's mind was doubtless filled with the Holy 
Spirit. It was exalted to a high state of purity and 
spiritual power. He doubtless at the moment possessed 
higher, truer views of Christianity than any living man. 
Well would it have been if all had for the moment 
been wise enough to accept his authority within this 
sphere. Yet we see no possibility of clearing some parts 
of his reported speech from historical mistake. When 
an unquestionable instance can be adduced of one of the 
inspired canonical writers having made a statement 
irreconcilable with truth, undoubtedly we must in that 
instance admit the limitation to his inspiration. But 
we wait for that instance to be adduced. The authority 
of the true text still stands over our religious faith. The 
Bible, the whole Bible, is the standard of ultimate appeal. 

As we have said, the important question appears to 
be not so much the inspiration of the Bible as its au- 
thority. Christ, the great Head of both the New Tes- 
tament Church and the Old, did uniformly speak of the 
Old Testament as the standard of religious authority, 
whose dictum was final. The true meaning of an Old 
Testament text was held by him, within its proper scope, 
to be decisive on a question of theology. Now whether 
the primitive documents, of which scholars decide that 



Christian Evidences. 



195 



Genesis or any other book was made up, were originally 
inspired at all or not is not so important. On the author- 
ity of Christ we hold them authoritative. It may be, for 
aught we know, that parts of Kings or Chronicles, or 
all, were written with only the official inspiration of the 
sacerdotal historiographer. The narrative, for instance, 
of David and Abishag may be written with none but 
the ordinary inspiration which belonged to a holy, 
chosen official of the chosen Church of God. Still as 
truth in a book of truth, that narrative comes down 
sanctioned to us by the lips of incarnate truth. 

As there are men who are constitutionally supra-nat- 
uralistic, so there are families, races, and periods pre- 
eminently so. When, as in Etruria, and at one time in 
Asia Minor, that supra-naturalism is disunited from a 
high moral spirit, it goes into magic and demonism ; 
or, as at the present day in our own land, into pseudo- 
spiritualism. But the Abrahamic family, blending a 
supra-naturalistic temperament with a faithful piety, 
were humanly constituted to become a chosen people of 
Jehovah. They were the proper subjects and media of 
divine revelation, prophecy, and miracle. Constructed 
into an organism, they became Jehovah's Church. To 
them suitably were committed the oracles of God. Of 
Jehovah's monotheistic nature, and the fact of his future 
incarnation, they became, by divine selection, the official 
depositories and expositors to the world. Hence was 
formed in various degrees an inspired Church, with a 
body of records assuming the various forms of history, 
prophecy, apothegm, and hymnology. And when He 
came who was the divine flower of humanity, he hesi- 
tated not to sanction the questionless authority of those 
records. So much for the Old Testament. 

We believe the New Testament canon to be a unit. 
It is an absurdity to our view that Christ should come, 



196 Statements: Theological and Critical. 



preach, and die, and leave for the world no authentic 
official record for what he came, preached, and died. 
We hold very cheap, therefore, all dubious discussions 
of the New Testament books. Christ did not labor and 
sutler for nothing. He chose and inspired his official 
witnesses, he organized his Church ; these witnesses 
and that Church prepared the great statement for the 
w^oiid. And either Christ did his work very poorly, or 
that statement contains an infallible exposition of Christ's 
religion. Every New Testament writer is a witness 
chosen by Christ; and if every line and word which 
such witnesses have left us is not reliable, then Christ 
pitifully failed in his attempt to give us his real system 
of holy truth. He lived and died in vain. But Christ, 
also, for this same purpose, inspired his early apostolic 
Church. The New Testament unit comes down to us 
accepted by the primitive body of Christians as the 
canon of Christ's religion. We claim the right to be- 
lieve, then, that it is Christ s own ca?io?i, and, as such, 
whether in every part originally inspired or not, is in 
every part and particle binding on our Christian faith. 

It might, however, be worth while to investigate 
how far the great body of our Christian evangelical laity 
are practically and unscientifically influenced by the 
semi-critical discussions of the day. They know little 
of Christian "evidences " From the newspapers they 
learn that Darwin and Lyell come into serious collision 
with Genesis. Few thoughtful laymen, we suppose, but 
do occasionally, in reading certain passages of the Old 
Testament, entertain, momentarily at least, a misgiving 
or a query ; yet, for some reason or other, such a lay- 
man's permanent position is thereby practically very lit- 
tle disturbed. If passages of Genesis or Chronicles do 
momentarily appear inexplicable, there is somehow 
in the Bible a great positive power which, without 



Chkistian Evidences. 



197 



going into the question of absolute infallibility of every 
part, he feels and obeys. Those great, stupendous, 
self-evidencing truths, such as the existence of an all- 
ruling God, under whose sway sin must meet with ret- 
ribution, hold him fast. The impressive personality of 
the incarnate Son of God, in the wonder of his life, and 
still more his death, somehow possesses his soul. At 
every communion the power of the atonement comes 
home upon his heart and touches his personal experi- 
ence. Gvi r all these truths and processes the blessed 
Spirit, with its heavenly power, presides. And thus, 
while scientific infidelity is waging its war, our revivals 
still spread vitality over the Church, our Church blooms 
like the garden of God, the centennial offering pours in 
its spontaneous millions, and the massive Christian 
structures are taking their a^e-enduring foundations. 
Truly, seldom have ruin and decay looked so much like 
prosperity and immortal bloom. 

Inspiration. 

So far as the absolute authority of the Scriptures is 
concerned, it might be of little consequence what is the 
theory of inspiration, so long as it is conceded that they 
are sanctioned by God, as the veritable revelation from 
God, and as true in every part and proposition when 
interpreted in the intentional sense of the writer. The 
question of plenary authority being assumed, the ques- 
tion of the mode or modes of inspiration is matter of 
permissible sacred curiosity, and of fair textual inter- 
pretation, but no longer an article of a standing or 
falling rule of faith. 

Entering, then, the interior of the sacred volume, as- 
suming the perfect truth to the letter of all its decla- 
rations, and interrogating its own authority as to the 
particular modes, we think there might be shown ample 



198 Statements : Theological and Critical. 



grounds for holding that the modes and degrees of in- 
spiration at different times were very various. Dicta- 
tions of word there no doubt often were; pictorial rep- 
resentation, animating impulse, restraining guardianship, 
and spiritual exaltation. And yet in the historical parts, 
where simple matters of human memory and previous 
document were arranged and recorded, we seem to find 
that little else was needed or afforded, other than prov- 
idential guardianship and guidance. It is undemanded 
by any safety of faith, as it is burdensome to any rea- 
sonable belief, ,to suppose that the Books of Chronicles 
or Ruth, and the narrative of Abishag or Tamar, were 
produced with the same full flow of plenary inspiration 
as the Messianic prophecies of Isaiah. We believe in 
the divinely sanctioned truth and authority of every 
genuine syllable of these records. They are a decisive 
rule of faith. We deny the safety and the right of 
unsettling their foundations or discriminating their au- 
thority. We accept them as a whole, and assert their 
every part. We shoulder the w T hole task of meeting 
the attacks of cavil and criticism at every point. In 
that task we promptly assume as true whatever can- 
not be by demonstration proved as false. It is true, 
if every difficulty on any reasonably invented supposi- 
tion admits a solution; it is true, even where no suppo- 
sition solves the difficulty, and nothing is left but the 
possibility that the difficulty could be solved by a fuller 
knowledge of facts. 

Such being our view, we deny the theory of univers- 
al plenary inspiration; but hold the doctrine of plenary 
authority. We do not hold the doctrine of verbal dic- 
tation, but we do hold the doctrine of verbal truth and 
binding power. The assumption that we think only in 
words is plentifully contradicted by every man's con- 
sciousness. As children, we have conceptions long be- 



Christian Evidences. 



199 



fore we have words. The dog that lies dreaming of 
the chase has rapid trains of thought, but not a sylla- 
ble of a word. We are constantly exercising percep- 
tions of shades of color, and shapes of matter, for which 
there is no name. He must have a feeble power of 
consciousness, or a mighty power over words, who is 
not often possessed of a thought for which he pauses 
for the word. We hold the conception fast, waiting 
for its correlative term to come. Who does not often 
think of a friend's face without being able to recall 
his name ? The argument, then, derived from necessity, 
that a revelation must be verbal because we cannot 
think without words, is not conclusive. 

In all due reverence for the Bible as the word of 
God we fully sympathize. An intuitional religion, un- 
fastened by the letter, unregulated by the rule, may 
flare gorgeously for a while, but will prove as evanes- 
cent as it is emotional. We protest against a faith 
without a belief. We hold to a doctrine and affirm a 
creed. Christ is the truth as well as the life; and th 
Church that disparages the truth will, in due time, lose 
the life. Those who pretend to hold the power of god- 
liness and deny the form thereof will not retain either 
power or form. We fall back upon " the Bible, the re- 
ligion of Protestants;" and we would rather fall back 
to Liturgy and Rubric, where Wesley lived and died, 
than attempt to soar into that pseudo-transcendentalism 
which feels the Scriptures a clog and an obstacle rather 
than a stay and a guide. 

The New Testament Canon — How Made. 

In what manner and by what authority were the 
books constituting our present New Testament selected 
and credited with a divine authority ? The skeptic and 
the Romanist put this question, each with a different 



200 Statements : Theological and Ceitical. 

purpose: the former to overthrow Christianity, the lat- 
ter to establish the sole authority of the Church, that is, 
of the Romish Church. A notion prevails that the se- 
lection was made by ecclesiastical councils; and the sus- 
picion is cherished that it was by an arbitrary and un- 
founded process, leaving out other works quite as well 
entitled to divine honors as the constituents of the pres- 
ent canon. There is satisfactory ground for the conclu- 
sion that, as the successive books came from their au- 
thors, they were immediately accepted by the body of 
the Christian churches with complete unanimity; that 
their autographs were, some of them, deposited in ar- 
chives of the particular churches; that they were accept- 
ed and read from Sabbath to Sabbath; that copies were 
taken and spread broadcast during the apostolic day, 
and widely scattered through the churches of Europe, 
Asia, and Africa, and that they were received without 
dissent, with a free spontaneous faith, as the authorita- 
tive exposition of Christian doctrine, as the canonical 
Scripture of the New Dispensation. After these canon- 
ical books were written, an interim of silence appears. 
Few or no Christian writings are issued. But the mo- 
ment this silence is broken, a new class of eminent intel- 
lects hold the pen, and from them we learn that while 
the Christian Church forms an immense body through- 
out the world, eight ninths of our present New Testa- 
ment are held by her unanimous voice, are installed as 
the divine charter of her existence, and the infallible 
standard of her faith, order, and practice. When asked 
who selected the books of the canon, we might well an- 
swer, Nobody selected them; they took their place spon- 
taneously. They formed into a body of themselves, 
with the unanimous concurrence of the witnessing 
Church. 

And this age, in whose sacred silence the canon was 



Christian Evidences. 



201 



born, was the age of the apostolical martyr Church, 
governed by regents selected by Christ himself, in full 
possession of miraculous gifts and the power of the dis- 
cerning of spirits. Were we to say, then, that the books 
were singly written by individuals animated by no spe- 
cial inspiration, but by only the ordinary measure of 
the Spirit then vouchsafed to the eminent and holy men 
in the Church; that they uttered only in the most truth- 
ful spirit the facts of the Gospel narrative, or in the 
most wise and devout spirit the doctrines and senti- 
ments of Christianity; what then? We nevertheless 
have a canon, every line and word of which is accepted 
and indorsed as the rule of faith, the word of history, 
the doctrine of Christ. Peter erred, and Paul was ex- 
cited; but the sacred canon depends not on Peter or 
Paul singly, nor upon Matthew or Luke, but additionally 
upon the concurrent acceptance and ratification of the 
Pentecostal Church. What was the nature of the indi- 
vidual inspiration of each writer is, then, a question of 
justifiable and rational curiosity. It is a proper subject 
of investigation in the light of reason and Scripture; 
but we do not think it is one in which the divine 
authority of the New Testament or the Old is so deeply 
involved as is generally supposed. Should a man tell 
us, U I cannot believe that the words of the New Testa- 
ment, with all their solecisms, tangled sentences, am- 
biguities, and incomplete expressions of the thought, 
are dictated by divine wisdom;" we should reply, "But 
at any rate those words were sanctioned by the charis- 
matic Church as the true expression, in their proper 
meaning, of the Christian faith." 

The Oneness of the Scriptures. 
How clearly the Bible is a supernatural book, a self- 
evident miracle, is, from the neglect of a critical study 



202 Statements : Theological and Critical. 



of the connection between the Old Testament and the 
New, very inadequately realized. The whole drift of 
the Old looks forward to the New; the whole self-asser- 
tion of the New looks back to the Old. There are thou- 
sands of mutual ties, some of them minute fibers singly 
easy to break, others strong cords, forming in the whole 
a oneness of the two unparalleled in the history of hu- 
man thought. This miraculous circularity is not to be 
found in any of the sacred books of the unchristian na- 
tions — the Yedas, the Shasters, or the Korans. It be- 
longs to the Bible alone, and thus places the Bible as 
alone among all written monuments. 

Dr. Smith's Prophecy a Preparation for Christ is one 
of the most important efforts in our language at unfold- 
ing this miracle and making it patent to the mind of 
the Church. It is a historical survey of Old Testament 
prophecy, especially in its anticipations of Christ and 
the Gospel ages. He first analyzes the nature of proph- 
ecy and the precise character of the ancient prophet 
from the earliest antiquity. Its rise is dim and sporad- 
ic; in the twilight of antiquity. The prophet is not 
purely predictor, but revealer of the divine mind as 
well, whether in regard to the future, present, or past. 
His utterance is oral, and his impulses and existence 
occasional. 

At the close of the age of the Judges, a great char- 
acter arose, wonderful for his endowments, intellectual, 
ethical, and eupernatural — the prophet Samuel. He 
was the reformer of the past and the founder of a new 
era. Corresponding to his great character was the di- 
vine effusion of spiritual endowment that marked the 
epoch. Thereby he was enabled to establish the school 
of the prophets, a sacred university, which, in a form 
more or less definite, remained until the captivity. 
This divine thrill from on high quickened the genius 



Christian Evidences. 



203 



of Israel in every department of thought and life, and 
the intellectual and moral being of the nation moved 
thenceforward on a higher plane. Happy day, when 
every branch of human improvement recognized itself 
as but a radiation from the divine ! In Samuel's col- 
lege there was one rare youth, the strains of whose in- 
spired genius still roll in our ears and elevate our souls 
to God; one who as warrior, royal statesman, and sacred 
lyrist, was, despite of grievous errors, to render his 
name the type of that great Unknown who stood in 
the future as the " Hope of Israel." From Samuel and 
the Judgeship to David and the monarchy was an as- 
cending step in theocratic history. 

The next great epoch was the inauguration of writ- 
ten prophecy. When the monarchy arose and Jerusa- 
lem became the national center, a varied literature 
sprung into existence, the monarchs themselves leading 
the movement; books w T ere published, libraries estab- 
lished, and an enlightened public mind created. The 
sacred colleges were led by men of divine endowments, 
who studied with earnest interest the teachings of their 
predecessors as the basis whence their premonitions au- 
gured the divine purposes and shot their predictions 
farther and clearer into the future. Each prophet did 
not stand in a bleak lonesomeness. A critical general 
mind, scarce inferior to that of the prophet himself, 
judged his manifestations and embodied utterance after 
utterance into established doctrine. But, for a long 
time, the predictive utterances were oral. At length, 
when the brief power of Assyria was at its height, Jo- 
nah wrote his book announcing the wonderful fact of 
mercy upon repentance even for heathendom — the first 
great startling type of the call of the Gentiles ! Then 
followed Joel, announcing the great catholic truths 
quoted by Peter at the Pentecost. From the catholic 



204 Statements : Theological and Ceitical. 



generality of these two primal prophets Isaiah rises to 
deduce the most specific delineations of the coming 
God-man. In him prophecy culminates. Micah is his 
not unworthy contemporary in the sacred college. Then, 
through Jeremiah and Daniel, down to Malachi, numer- 
ous additional touches are given by each successive 
hand to finish out the picture of the future One. 

To the argument from this phenomenon of prediction, 
so patent in the Bible, so unparalleled in any other lit- 
erature, there is no adequate answer. The Pantheistic 
axiom, there can be no supernatural^ is the sole ground 
upon which all counter-argument is based. But for this 
primal assumption of skepticism the phenomenon would 
be at once admitted, and the self-styled " higher criti- 
cism" would have no existence. On this basis it is first 
objected that prophecies are obscure ; but the reply is, 
Fling out every obscure prediction and the perfectly 
clear ones are superabundant. It is next assumed that 
when they are clear they are written after the event ; 
but the reply is, All the events of Christianity, so 
clearly predicted, took place long after the Septuagint 
translation of the old canon; while other predictions, as 
the Jewish dispersion, are being fulfilled at the present 
hour, 

With regard to the Messianic predictions, the last 
subterfuge is that they fulfilled themselves : or, as 
Strauss puts it, the early Christians constructed the 
Christ-history from the Old Testament delineations. 
And that subterfuge concedes a great deal. It admits 
the existence of the Messianic ideal fully and specifically 
formed in the Old Testament and held by the Jewish 
Church. And now the historic Christ of Christianity, 
so far from identity with this formation by the Jewish 
mind from old prophecy, is quite a reverse character 
from that ideal, and is yet the trice fulfillment. The 



Christian Evidences. 



205 



Jewish national ambition had so distorted the prophetic 
ideal as to make it a fictitious character. Christianity 
brought out the ideal into a true reality. And nobody 
was more taken by surprise at this process than Chris- 
tianity itself. Nothing can be more intuitively natural 
and true than the description of the conceptive change 
taking place in the apostolic minds, while out of the 
false Jewish Messiahship the true Jesus Messiahship, 
according to prophecy, breaks upon the apostolic view. 

The Christian Church Older than the New Testament. 

Now we had occasion to say, years agone, that the 
Christian Church is older than the New Testament, and 
lived a century or so without it a life of wonderful 
power. With a living heart, inspired by the same Spirit 
as inspired the Bible, the Church is, in a sense, greater 
than the Bible. But our impression is, that if our 
Christian scholars investigate the matter they will find 
thnt no Church is faster bound to 4he text than the 
Romfinistic. The words, for instance, of the Council of 
Trent are, " This Synod venerates all the books of both 
the Old and New Testament, since God is their author." 
The late General Council issued TJie Dogmatic Consti- 
tution of the Catholic Faith, containing these words: 
"Let him be anathema who . . . shall refuse to receive, 
for sacred and canonical, the books of the Holy Script- 
ure, in their integrity, with all their parts, according as 
they were enumerated by the Holy Council of Trent, or 
shall deny that they are inspired by God." And to 
this dictum, a thousand times repeated in Romanistic 
documents, that Church is bound by the insoluble tie 
of immutable infallibility. Her doctrine is that the 
canon is "the word of God," and by that dogma she 
stands or falls, for she cannot retract or abate jot or 
tittle. This dogma is none the less vital because she 



206 Statements : Theological and Critical. 



makes apostolic tradition co-ordinately " the word of 
God" with the Bible. She cannot surrender the 
divine authorship, inspiration, and authority of the 
Bible without surrendering her own infallibility, and 
so giving up the ghost. To confess a mistake is to 
commit suicide. 

Not so the Protestant Church. Without impairment 
of vital truths we hold, we are able to confess that we 
have erred and still may err. The very words, Prot- 
estant and Reformation, point to doctrines changed and 
abandoned. When full conviction comes upon us (which 
surely has not yet come), we are able to change the Ro- 
manistic dogma, "The Bible is the word of God," to 
"The Bible contains the word of God." Suppose the 
New Testament comes to be confessed to be simply so 
many historical documents; they are still, according to 
ordinary historical criticism, ample proof — certainly the 
highest proof — of what the first Christianity was. If 
Christian criticism were finally to conclude that Second 
Peter and the Apocalypse were not written by apos- 
tles, they would still stay, at least, deutero-canonical, 
primitive testimonies as to what Christianity was. 
Evangelical scholarship has very generally concluded 
that Genesis is very largely made up of pre-Mosaic 
documents: patriarchal Bibles successively given. If, 
however, science should demonstrate that the first three 
or four chapters of the first document cannot be lit- 
eral verity, or if researches among the Assyrian bricks 
should show that the entire nine chapters are semi- 
mythical, how much easier would it not be for Protest- 
antism to qualify her indorsement of these chapters 
than for Romanism ? Give us merely of the Old Tes- 
tament what the most searching fair criticism can leave 
unquestioned, and the main body of the evangelical 
faith is untouched. Then give us as truly genuine the 



Christian Evidences. 



207 



Gospel of Luke and the four Epistles of Paul (Romans, 
I and II Corinthians, and Galatians), acknowledged to 
be genuine even by Tubingen, all the other New Testa- 
ment books being unquestionable documents of a very 
early period, and the evangelical faith would be essen- 
tially untouched. None of these changes could Roman- 
ism admit without admitting her own mutability. Such, 
in the face of all criticism, does the Protestant Church 
hold as her rich abundance and reserve of power. With 
these views it can easily be felt that there is no need of 
panic; and we may add, we believe there is no real 
panic. 

While scientists and critics are undermining The- 
ism, Genesis, and the Apocalypse, still Christian en- 
terprise, revival, discussion of the central truths, are 
going on as vitally and vigorously as ever. Sin still 
presses upon the conscience ; joy still springs from faith 
in Christ; holiness is still the boon after which the 
Christian heart will pant. We are essentially at one 
with the Church of the first two centuries — the Church 
that scarce had a canon — yet the Church with a 
heart glowing with a sense of oneness with Christ; the 
Church that smiled at martyrdom, and conquered in 
the battle, less for the book, than for the Christ the 
book contained. 



ARMINIAN THEOLOGY. 

The Latitudinarian Arminians before Arminius. 

In two remarkable volumes, namely, Rational Theology 
and Christian Philosophy in England in the Seventeenth 
Century, Dr. Tulloch displays great critical thought, 
expressed in eloquent style, in bringing to view two 
phases of English ecclesiastical history hitherto much 



208 Statements : Theological and Critical. 

overlooked, but really invested with specal interest. 
Two groups, rather than sects or schools, of Christian 
thinkers are presented: the former springing from Ox- 
ford; the latter, a little later, from Cambridge. The 
former are Liberal Churchmen; the latter, rather of 
Puritan origin, yet mostly Churchmen, are usually styled 
"the Latitudinarian divines." It was the province of 
the former to maintain the idea of a comprehensive 
Church; of the latter to raise and expand Christian 
thought above and beyond the narrow type of preva- 
lent Puritanic dogma. 

Dr. Tulloch preludes his history with a review of the 
growth of earliest Protestant dogmatism. Early Prot- 
estantism was compelled to stereotype her creed in or- 
der to meet the positivism of Rome with a counter pos- 
itivism. The Bible, as against the pope, was the infal- 
lible standard of faith; but then it was the Bible as 
read and expounded by a man who could not read the 
Bible except in a translation — Augustine. The right 
of private judgment was asserted; but then private 
judgment was bound to judge that the established 
creed was right. 

It was the duty of the Church faithfully to main- 
tain the creed, and of the magistrate firmly to sus- 
tain the Church; so that liberty of belief was as fast 
bound under Protestant as under Papal regimen. It 
required a new reformer to complete the Reformation. 
The initiator of that new reformation was James 
Arminius. 

Calvinist as he is, so far as logical views are con- 
cerned, Dr. Tulloch at this point gives the frankest and 
most eloquent credit to the great services of Hollandic 
Arminianism in originating and unfolding the modern 
doctrine of toleration anywhere to be found upon 
pages written by a non-Arminian. The Dutch Armin- 



Arminian Theology. 



209 



ians defined the true province of creeds as simply forms 
of voluntary concord, and gave an impulse to independ- 
ent biblical investigation. We should add, too, though 
Dr. Tulloeh would not admit it, that they really found 
the most logically constructed mode of interpreting the 
Bible, so as to explain the sovereignty of God in accord 
with the freedom of man. 

From the influence of Arminian thought, and from 
their own reflections, the Oxford men formed their 
views of a free, comprehensive, Protestant English Na- 
tional Episcopal Church. The leader of this noble 
group was Lucius Cary, Lord Falkland, the most learned 
and accomplished layman of his age. Around him were 
grouped Hales of Eton, Chillingworth, Jeremy Taylor, 
and Siillingfleet. The prince of this group was Chil- 
lingworth. 

Hales, of Eton, is memorable from the fact that he 
was present, when a young man, at the Synod of Dort, 
and wrote home his reports of that unfortunate body — 
unfortunate in having so truthful a reporter of its do- 
ings. He began his reports a strong adherent of the 
Calvinistic side, but before he got through he "bade 
good-night to John Calvin.' 1 Dr. Tulloeh adds, how- 
ever, "he did not bid good-morning to Arminius." 
That is hardly correct. The term Arminianism, in its 
broad sense, covers the theological territory which lies 
between Augustinianism and Pelagianism. If Hales 
abandoned Calvinism and rejected Pelagianism (as he 
certainly did in signing the Thirty-nine Articles), then 
he occupied, however vaguely, this intermediate ground. 
Call that intermediate what you please — Arminianism, 
Melancthonianism, Liberal Evangelicism — Hales did, in 
bidding good-night to Calvinism, bid good-morning to 
this mild region. Dr. Tulloeh himself loftily and truly 
proclaims that " the days of Augustinian predominance 



210 Statements : Theological and Ceitical. 



are forever ended." Augustinianism is now illustrating 
the last two lines of Bryant's stanza: 

" Truth crushed to earth shall rise again ; 

The eternal years of God are hers ; 
While Error, wounded, writhes in pain, 

And dies among his worshipers." * 

It is just as certain that the downfall of Calvinism is 
the ascendency, not of Pelagianism, but of Arminian- 
ism more or less definite. 

While the Oxford men were thus in accord with the 
Arminian liberalism, broadening the comprehension of 
the Church and calming the discord of Christian polem- 
ics, it was the mission, next, of the " Latitudinarians " 
of Cambridge to lift the Christian style of thought 
above the level of mere creed into the region of a Chris- 
tian philosophy. The creeds were the formulation of 

* Yet how slender a "predominance in the entire Christian 
Church Augustinianism ever has possessed, is admirably and truly 
shown in the following statement made by Dr. Summers, of the Meth- 
odist Episcopal Church, South, in his Introduction to Brandt's Life of 
Arir.inius, of the grounds t;tken by Methodists in regard to Arminian- 
ism: "In common with all who take the Arminian view of the Five 
Points, they contend that this is the catholic view: that it has always 
been held by the Eastern Church— that it was held universally in the 
Western Church, till the unhappy controversy took place between Pe- 
lagius and Augustine, when the latter in opposing one error went over 
to another; that the indor^ers of Augustinianism were always a mi- 
nority in the "Western Church down to the time of the Reformation; 
that it never was cast into logical form until the time of Calvin; that 
although, through his influence, it was embodied with less or more 
distinctiveness in many of the Reformed Confessions, yet it was never 
able to displace the broad, generous, scriptural system which it sought 
to supplant; and that it has been so modified from time to time as 
that, in many cases, its avowed supporters can scarcely show any dif- 
ference between it and that- which they professedly oppose; while 
not a few, missing the via media, have gone over to semi-Pelagian- 
ism, or what has been significantly denominated New Divinity." 



Aeminian Theology. 



211 



Scripture interpretation on questions at issue between 
the Reformers and the Pope. The Latitudinarians, 
mostly Platonists, endeavored to show that Christian 
doctrines, freely interpreted, were at one with the high- 
est and noblest range of human thought. The princi- 
pal of this group were Whichcote, Cudworth, John 
Smith, and Henry More. With the writings of these 
men we have for years been familiar, and recognize in 
Dr. Tulloch's survey of them a work most admirably 
performed which it is strange was not performed long 
ago. Of this group the prince clearly is Cudworth. 
His works have been most republished and read, in our 
time, of all the four. His great work in refutation of 
Hobbes may be carefully turned over with advantage 
at the present day, as pertinent in the contests of the 
present hour. The writings of John Smith* were the 
first brave effort to show that the great points of the 
so-called "natural religion," as embraced in Christian- 
ity, such as God, immortality, spirituality, are far no- 
bler, sublimer, more worthy to be believed, far more 
elevating and aggrandizing to the soul, than their oppo- 
sites. This is true and obvious to the present hour. 
Materialism is ever and unchangeably conscious of a 
certain meanness in itself. Whether held by a Hobbes 
or a Huxley, it seeks to cover its shame with some dis- 
guise. The atheist feels a tremor in avowing himself. 
And so the necessitarians, such as Hobbes and Edwards 
and Hodge, patch up an effigy which they call free-will^ 
and endeavor to cheat themselves with the palpable 
phantom. And so faith is aspiring and upward looking 
toward the sublimities, and the excellences, and the di- 
vine; while unfaith tends dow r nward toward meanness 
and depravity and the devilish. It is boldly replied to 

* "Wesley introduced John Smith, of Cambridge, into his Christian 
Library. 



212 Statements : Theological and Critical. 



this, at the present day, that the nobleness of a dogma 
is no valid proof of its truth. But a true theist refuses 
such a reply. If there be a kingdom of God, the de- 
velopment of our nature into the good, the true, and 
the divine, most accords with the divine wisdom and 
goodness, and whatever tends in that direction shall be 
true. 

The Oxford men above named were the harbingers 
of a more decided Arminianism in the Church of En- 
gland. Yet it is to be noted that the true honor due to 
Arminius personally was withheld from his name. Dr. 
Tulloch quotes, as indicative of great magnanimity, the 
words of the accomplished Sir Henry Wotton: "In my 
travel toward Venice, as I passed through Germany, I 
rested almost a year at Leyden, where I entered into an 
acquaintance with Arminius — then the professor of di- 
vinity in that university — a man much talked of in this 
age, which is made up of opposition and controversy. 
And, indeed, if I mistake not Arminius in his expres- 
sions — as so weak a brain as mine is may easily do — 
then I know I differ from him in some points; yet I 
profess my judgment of him to be that he was a man of 
most rare learning, and I know him to be of a most 
strict life and of a most meek spirit." — Vol. i, p. 200. 
Wesley, in his tract, What is an Arminianf says, "To 
say 'This man is an Arminian,' has the same effect on 
many hearers as to say 'This is a mad dog.' It puts 
them into a fright at once: they run away from him 
with all speed and diligence, and will hardly stop, un- 
less it be to throw a stone at the dreadful and mischiev- 
ous animal." — Works, vol. vi, p. 133. Our New En- 
gland Calvinistic pulpit used to belabor " Arminianism " 
by name with as much vigor as it did Deism, until he- 
roic Moses Stuart, in the Biblical Repository, with great 
independence and learning, revealed, to its astonish- 



Armixiax Theology. 



213 



ment, that "Arminius was not an Arminian;" that is, 
he held no such Arminianism as its ecclesiastical drum- 
stick had for two centuries been beating. Nor is there 
wanting, even now, a degree of magnanimity in the full 
and generous justice rendered by Dr. Tulloch to the 
character of one of the noblest personages of modern 
Church history. 

At Oxford, where the semi- Arminianism of these 
"liberal" Oxford. men became intensified and definite 
in conjunction with High - Churchisni, Wesley appears, 
at a later period, as their lineal heir. He breathed the 
hereditary spirit of the place, and Jeremy Taylor fur- 
nished him his horn book in spiritual discipline. But 
as their thoughts and writings dwell solely in the re- 
gions of high speculation, it was his mission to go out 
from the academic sphere and carry the power of these 
principles, touched with a new life, to the lower strata 
of society, and quicken the popular heart of England 
and America with a new reformation, or, rather, with 
a completion of the old reformation. It is to this point 
we wish most emphatically to call the attention and in- 
terest of our thoughtful Methodist readers. We have 
long known that these Oxford men and this "splendid 
Latitudinarian school of divines " (as the celebrated 
Catholic lawyer, Charles Butler, styles them in his cele- 
brated Reminiscences) were in no small degree our spir- 
itual ancestry. 

Mr. Anthony Froude is quite unhistorical in saying 
that " Calvinism has been accepted for two centuries in 
all Protestant countries." Certainly, for two centuries 
England hns rejected it; and Lutheranism in Germany 
has some rights to a mention in history. Under Luther, 
Zuinglius, and Calvin, predestination did at start ac- 
quire a predominance in Protestantism such as it never 
before nor since possessed in any great section of the 



214 Statements : Theological and Critical. 



Christian Church, however predominant in the Moham- 
medan. It became strongly intrenched in the national 
creeds. But in most signal instances the second sober 
thought resulted in reaction, and, from that time to this, 
the belief and the creeds have been gradually bidding 
each other good-bye. 

Mr. Froude affirms, as is often affirmed at the present 
day, that we cannot deny that Calvinism accords with 
the facts. Arbitrary inequalities and rank injustices do 
exist in the world. If we listen not merely to our sub- 
jective feelings, but to the story of facts inductively 
studied, they will preach us Calvinism. Then, we re- 
ply, The preaching is falsehood. The " facts " are vil- 
lainous liars. They libel God. They are blasphemers; 
for they impeach his rectitude. A true theology which 
shall "vindicate the ways of God to man" does not 
legitimatize and eternize these " facts," but will show 
how the "up clearing" of judgment and eternity will 
reverse the story and give these lying " facts " the lie. 
Assuming, with the Calvinist, that the story of these 
" facts " is ultimate, the Atheist denies that there is any 
God; the Manichean affirms that there is a God half- 
good and half -bad ; the Pessimist declares that existence 
is a curse, and the Buddhist that the highest of all at- 
tainments is Nirvana. The Arminian refuses to take 
these facts as ultimate. Those "subjective feelings," 
whicli Calvinism requires us to silence, Arminianism 
holds to be holy intuitions, the virtual voice of God 
within us asserting the divine rectitude.* It admits that 
" this world " (with a powerful emphasis on this) " was 
made for Caesar," and that Satan is god of this aeon. 
But its eye of divine faith, in accord with the faith of 
all the faithful of old, looks to the day of rectification, 
when the world and all the "facts" that are therein 
shall be " burned up." The very difference between a 



Akminian Theology. 



215 



world of probation and a world of retribution is, that 
in the latter the Caesarisms and Satanisms are not per- 
petuated, but rectified and made subservient to a grand 
reversal. 

As to the monopoly of nobleness of character by Cal- 
vinism, it depends much on the list you please to draw 
up. It will be a small catalogue in human history that 
owes its luster to its Calvinism. Of all countries in 
Europe, perhaps England has given the two opposing 
isms fairest play, and how meager a showing is made 
by Calvinism ! What share had Calvinism in her very 
highest line of names, as Shakespeare, Milton, Bacon, 
Locke, Newton, Butler, and Wesley, or in Marlborough, 
Chatham, Franklin, Washington, and Wellington? 
The very fact that, starting with the predominance at 
the Reformation in the noblest nation of Europe, she 
was dispossessed, worsted, and outlawed, doing her 
greatest good mainly as an unsuccessful revolter, yet 
leaving England still the noblest nation of Europe, is 
decisive proof of her failure as a predominant good in 
history. 

The English Compromise. 

There are two books of fine old English theology 
well worthy the attention of the Methodist theological 
thinker: Pearson on the Creed, from whom Watson 
culls many a fine extract, and Burnet on the Thirty- 
Nine Articles, which sheds much light upon our own 
standard document. The former is a true specimen of 
the free, fresh English of his age ; the latter is less lucid 
and classic, yet abounds in vigorous and suggestive dis- 
cussions. When, in the reign of James I., the debates 
aroused by Arminius in Holland had powerfully im- 
pressed the English mind, the best thinkers in England 
were awakened to find how completely they were fet- 
tered in their Articles by the imported theology of 



216 Statements : Theological and Critical. 



Geneva. The still older Eastern, Greek, or Chrysosto- 
rnian, theology had been supplanted by the later West- 
ern, or Augustinian, dogmas. They had not strength 
enough to reconstruct the Articles, and so the Chrysos- 
tomians, or Arminians, re-interpreted them. The vari- 
ous parties were so equally divided that a compromise 
spontaneously took place, by which, under the generic 
Calvinistic phrases, different specific meanings might 
be allowed. The clergy generally went back to the 
Greek theology, and this, in fact, drew them nearer to 
that of Trent, and the fashionable and court opinions 
became anti-Calvinistic. The result was, as somewhat 
overstated for terseness' sake, by Lord Chatham, that 
the English Church has " a popish liturgy, a Calvinistic 
creed, and an Arminian clergy." The Puritans adhered 
to high Calvinism, so that the curious antithesis, re- 
marked by Selden in his Table Talk, existed by which 
absolutists in creed became the liberalists in politics, 
and vice versa. But so severely did the Puritan abso- 
lutistic liberalism press upon the nation that the reac- 
tion brought in Charles II. with a national debauch. 
The revolution of 1688 restored the public balance. 
And here it is, in the time of William and Mary, that 
Burnet comes in with his " Exposition" of the Churchly 
Articles. The Calvinists and Lutherans and Arminians 
were all in a quarrelsome mood ; and he brings them 
counsels of peace and love ; yet not without a free fra- 
ternal discussion of doctrinal truth. In much of his 
treatment he gives the various views of leading minds 
and classes of minds, with but gentle interposition of 
his own opinions. Upon the Predestinarian article, 
especially, he congratulates himself upon having stated 
the argument on both sides so fairly that nobody could 
tell on which side he stood, although he really held the 
Eastern, or Arminian, theology. Dean Stanley wishes 



Armlnian Theology. 



217 



that some one would explain historically how John 
Wesley became a maintainer of the Eastern theology. 
We understand it to have been, as to Predestination, 
the theology of the whole Wesley family, derived from 
its High-Church antecedents. 

Instead of modifying the Articles by diverse inter- 
pretations, Wesley, in his day, expurgated the Articles 
themselves. One of our Roman Catholic exchanges 
lately impeached the integrity of Wesley for mutilat- 
ing Articles he had sworn to maintain. But Wesley 
made no change which altered the doctrines as then 
held by the Church authorities, and as by him prom- 
ised to be taught. All he did was to diminish the 
amount of the assent required by those who belonged 
to his " Societies." And as American Methodism, in 
ceasing to be " Societies," and becoming a Church, 
adopted his diminished form, so, what he struck out 
from the Ninth Article is not to be required as Method- 
ist doctrine ; nay, it stands in the historical position of 
being, like the Nineteenth (predestinarian) Article, 
positively exscinded and supposably denied. 

Shedd's History of Christian Doctrine.* 

Of Augustine, Dr. Shedd's theological idol, we admire 
rather the great talents and massy volume than the the- 
ological soundness. There is scarce a character in 
Church history from whom we inherit so disastrous 
a theological legacy. His conversion from Manichean- 
ism seems ultimately to have consisted in slicing away 
the better half of his double God, and in spreading the 
black deity over the firmament of Christian theology. 
To his ingenium atrox we trace the accursed dogmas 
of infant damnation, transferred guilt, the identifica- 
tion of depravity with sexual appetite, and predestina- 
* From review of Dr. Shedd's A History of Christian Doctrine. 



218 Statements: Theological and Critical. 

tion. Pelagius was the better man, and not doctrinally 
the greater heretic. The former relaxed the moral 
nerve of man, the latter diaboUzed God. The former 
was a practical rationalist; the severer doctrines of the 
latter, while they repelled and made infidel the highest 
reason of man, when fully accepted, resulted often in a 
self-immolating but reasonless piety, none the less self- 
ish for its self-immolation, resembling the self-consecra- 
tion of an Oriental pantheist. True Christian doctrine 
lies between the two ; is neither Pelagian nor Augus- 
tinian ; rejects the self-sufficiency and disregard of gra- 
cious divine aids of the former, and the God-dishonor- 
ing fatalism of the latter. It is the golden mean of 
true theology which the whole Christian Church of the 
first three centuries held ; which, with minor variations, 
the great body of the Christian Church, Eastern, Roman, 
and Protestant, holds ; the Protestant, with the excep- 
tion of those sections which have come under the influ- 
ence of the Genevan forger of the decretum horribile. 
Dr. Shedd's great art consists in bringing out into mon- 
strous prominence the narrow and exceptional, so that 
Church doctrinal history consists largely of a history of 
doctrines which the Church did not hold. 

When he comes to the anthropology of the entire 
Christian Church, Eastern and Western, from the time 
of the apostles to the time of Augustine, Dr. Shedd is 
obliged to exert his utmost ingenuity to evade the unde- 
niable but stupendous fact that all the peculiarities of 
modern Calvinism are utterly contradicted and con- 
demned, and that the entire Christian body was what 
would now be considered substantially Arminian. The 
Eastern Church, Syriac and Greek, he is compelled to 
surrender outright. Its theology was not far from the 
sub-Arminianism of Limborch and Curcellaeus. Under 
a prattle about " germs " and " tendencies " to Augus- 



Ar'minian Theology. 



219 



tinianism in the early Western Church, etc., he endeav- 
ors to disguise the fact that its pre-Augustinian theology 
was not above the level of the Arminianism of Arminius 
himself. Of this he tells us Augustinianism was a de- 
velopment; which is as true as that Princeton theology 
is a development of Wesleyan theology. Dr. Shedd's 
phrase, " the Latin or Augustinian theology," is a plump 
historical mistake. Augustinian theology never was 
" the Latin theology." It was, even in the West, gen- 
erally the theology of a slim minority of fatalistic ultra- 
ists. But what we wish specially to emphasize and 
spread out for deliberate contemplation and permanent 
memory is this : Even in the West before the teaching 
of Augustine the entire Church rejected the doctrine of 
hereditary guilt, necessitated damnability, irresistible 
grace, predestination, unfree-will, and unconditional elec- 
tion. This whole brood of cockatrice's eggs was hatched 
in the Church by the evil genius of the fervid African. 
The primitive Western theology was not the theology 
of Calvin, nor Twisse, nor Hodge, nor Shedd; but rather 
of Arminius, of Cranraer, of Wesley, of Watson, of 
Wilbur Fisk, and of our Methodist Quarterly Review. 

In regard to Dr. Shedd's direct treatment of Arminian- 
ism, we can realize that " blessed are those who expect 
nothing, for they shall not be disappointed." The ran- 
dom statements contained in his Discourses warned us 
of his unacquaintance with a theology which he imagined 
himself to be opposing, when, in fact, he was only 
misunderstanding and misstating. Dr. Shedd's reading, 
like his writing, has been one-sided. His studies, like 
every other man's, have been not universal, but partial, 
and they have not lain among the great Arminian di- 
vines ; and his second-hand quotations and misstate- 
ments are of the most perturbing nature. He tells us 
(vol. ii, page 496) that the writings of Limborch were 



220 Statements : Theological axd Critical. 



dogmatical, and those of Curcellseus were exegetical; 
whereas a glance at their pages would have made him 
say that Limborch is partly exegetical, and Curcellaaus 
wholly dogmatical. A reading of those great Armin- 
ians might have prevented his giving Limborchus as the 
Latin form of Limborch, instead of Limburgius. The 
name of Curcellseus is spread in capitals on the album 
page as among his standard Arminian authorities on sote- 
riology, and his Book Seven is specified as the treatment 
of that subject; whereas, Curcellaeus is, we are sorry to 
say, essentially Socinian on the atonement, and his Book 
Seven has nothing to do with the subject. That book 
is entirely devoted to Christian ethics. What is more 
amusing still, Dr. Shedd (vol. ii, page 373) professedly 
quotes, refutes, and flaunts with a lofty sneer at the sote- 
riology of (as he supposes) Curcellseus, when in fact it is 
Limborch whom he is really quoting, giving the twenty- 
second chapter of Cureellseus's Third Book as his author- 
ity, when there are not twenty-three chapters in his Third 
Book; and his Third Book has nothing to do with sote- 
riology. Curcellseus discusses very briefly the atonement 
in his Fifth Book ; and a perusal of that book will show 
Dr. Shedd that he is no representative of Arminian 
soteriology, his views being even below the Grotian. 

The correctness of his treatment of this point in this 
passage is about equal to the accuracy of the quoting. 
Dr. Shedd's words are (quoting imaginarily Curcellseus, 
really Limborch, Theologia Christiana, lib. iii, chap, xxii) : 

" ' Jesus Christ,' says Curcellseus, ' maybe said to have 
been punished (puixitus) in our place, in so far as he 
endured the greatest anguish of soul, and the accursed 
death of the cross for us, which were of the nature of 
a vicarious punishment in the place of our sins,* (quae 

* What does Dr. Sliedd mean by a vicarious punishment in the 
place of our sins ? 



Aeminian Theology. 



221 



poence vicarice pro peccatls nostris rationem habuit). 
And it may be said that our Lord satisfied the Father 
for us by his death, and earned righteousness for us, in 
so far as lie satisfied, not the rigor and exactitude of 
the divine justice, but the just as well as compassionate 
will of God {volurdati Dei justce simul ac misericordi), 
and went through all that God required in order to our 
reconciliation.' According to these positions," con- 
tinues Dr. Shedd, " the sufferings of Christ were not a 
substituted penalty, but a substitute for a penalty, A 
substituted penalty is a strict equivalent, but a substi- 
tute for a penalty may be of inferior worth, as when a 
partial satisfaction is accepted for a plenary one, by 
the method of acceptilation; or, as if the finite sacrifice 
of the lamb and the goat should be constituted by the 
will of God an offset for human transgression. And 
the term 1 satisfaction ' also is wrested from its proper 
signification, in that the sufferings of Christ are asserted 
to be a satisfaction of benevolence. ' Our Lord satisfied 
. . . not the rigor and exactitude of the divine justice, 
but the just as well as compassionate will of God,' — 
a use of language as solecistical as that which should 
speak of smelling a sound." * 

Now Limborch, whom Dr. Shedd is unknowingly 
quoting here, really takes the ground that Christ did 
not suffer infliction either identical or equivalent to the 
sinner's true desert, but a less accepted by God in 
the stead of the greater. " So that in this sense," 
he adds, " Jesus Christ may be rightly said to be pun- 
ished in our stead, inasmuch as he bore for us the 
accursed death of the cross, which had. the nature 
[rationem) of a vicarious punishment for our sins. And 
in this sense the Lord, by his own death, can be said to 
have satisfied the Father for us, and for us to have 
* Shedd's A History of Christian Doctrine, pp. 372-374. 



222 Statements : Theological and Critical. 



merited justification inasmuch as he satisfied not the 
rigor of divine justice, but the will of God, just and 
at the same time merciful, and performed all required 
by God to our reconciliation." Now Dr. Shedd's asser- 
tion that the term " satisfaction " is here " solecistic- 
ally " applied, and that " the sufferings of Christ are 
asserted to be a satisfaction of benevolence," are palpa- 
bly incorrect. It is God's "just will" which receives 
the "satisfaction." That will is, indeed, additionally 
merciful y but that mercy is engaged not in demanding 
satisfaction, but in diminishing the amount of suffering 
demanded. The mercy cancels just its own amount of 
the requirement of satisfaction. It is really because the 
benevolence does not require satisfaction that, in Lim- 
borch's view, Christ's penal sufferings may be less. If 
" smelling a sound " be as little " solecistical " to Dr. 
Shedd's senses as satisfying a just demand lessened by 
mercy, then his olfactories must be endowed with a 
vigorous taste for music. 

Freedom and Responsibility. 

An article in the Bibliotheca Sacra, on "The Old 
School in New England Theology," by Professor Law- 
rence, of East Windsor Theological Seminary, makes 
some candid and, in the general, correct remarks respect- 
ing the doctrines of Methodism. Its references to 
some of my own statements suggest a paragraph or two 
in reply. 

1. The "freedom" ascribed by Professor Lawrence 
to a responsible agent is, so far as we can see, the free- 
dom attributable to a machine. Just as a clock-ham- 
mer possesses in its given antecedents no power for a 
different stroke instead, so the agent has no power for 
"a different volition instead." The agent can in the 
given case give none but a one solely possible volition, 



Arminian Theology. 



223 



just as the clock-hammer can give none but a one sole- 
ly possible stroke. This is true of every volition that 
ever takes place, just as it is true of every clock-stroke 
that ever takes place. It is true of the entire series of 
volitions of every single agent, as it is true of the en- 
tire series of the strokes of every single clock. Just 
as, should a clock have an eternal existence, each stroke 
would be a solely possible stroke, so, should an agent 
have eternal existence, each volition would be a solely 
possible volition. As the clock could not, in a single 
one instance of the different series, help giving the given 
stroke, so the agent could not in a single instance help 
giving the given volition. If the volitions were all 
wicked, still, the agent gives the solely possible. No 
sinful volition that ever takes place could in the given 
antecedents have been withheld. * No sin ever commit- 
ted could have been helped or avoided. Sin and 
damnation are as inevitable to the sinner as the clock- 
stroke is to the clock. This the professor calls 
"freedom.'' It is just the freedom of a machine. It 
excludes guilt, responsibility, just retribution from ex- 
istence, and makes a just, retributive divine government 
impossible. 

2. A clock-hammer can give a different stroke, if it 
inclines or is moved to. That is, it can strike different- 
ly sequently upon different antecedents. Just so, Cal- 
vinists admit that the agent can will otherwise if — 
the antecedents are otherwise. That is, he can will dif- 
ferently in different cases ; which nobody was ever so 
unwise as to deny. Thus, to our making a man's Ar- 
minianism or Calvinism depend on his answer to Fletch- 
er's question, "Is the will at liberty to choose otherwise 
than it does, or is it not ? " Professor Lawrence replies, 
" A man is at perfect liberty to choose otherwise than 
he does, if he wishes to." A clock-hammer is perfectly 



224 Statements : Theological and Critical. 

at liberty, we reply, to strike otherwise if it is inclined 
to. But Professor Lawrence teaches, with all other ne- 
cessitarians, that this anterior "wish" of the agent is 
just as absolutely necessitated and controlled by ante- 
cedent causes, as this inclination of the clock-hammer 
is controlled by its antecedent mechanical causes. Each 
lies as a link in the chain of necessary causations. So 
that the volition, in the given case, is as solely pos- 
sible as the clock-stroke in the given case. And 
that excludes all responsibility or possibly just retri- 
bution. 

3. Professor Lawrence endeavors to exculpate the 
elder Calvinism from the logical difficulty of teach- 
ing that "it is divinely just to create one being bad, 
or a race bad, and then damn them for being bad." 
Of this dogma he affirms that Calvinism "ignores 
it and abjures it as cordially as do our Methodist 
brethren." 

Professor Lawrence possesses that manly equanimity 
which prevents his construing our pushing a doctrine to 
its logical consequences into an attack upon the doc- 
trinary himself. His love both of discussion and of 
truth would prompt him to say to us, Push our views 
into a logical or moral absurdity if you can, and let us 
see how fairly and conclusively it can be done. Very 
well. We say that in his own statement of the doc- 
trine of the will and responsibility, as we are obliged to 
understand it, is wrapped the very doctrine that he 
"abjures." 

Calvinism teaches that subsequent to the fall the race 
comes into existence necessitatedhj sinful ; and without 
any claim for power to be or do otherwise, it deserves dam- 
nation for being what it is, as thus brought into existence. 
That, we say, is holding that God may damn a creature 
for being what he makes him be. 



Arminian Theology. 



225 



Professor Lawrence in reply says, 1. " God created 
. . . man 'very good;' he never created any being or 
race bad." 2. " He condemns men only for the evil 
they were free in producing." 3. All attributable to 
God is, "he did not annihilate it," namely, the race. 
We reply to these in the same numerical order, 1. God 
created man with a nature which in his circumstances, 
according to Calvinism, was necessitated to sin. He 
was created volitionally unable, under the actual ante- 
cedents, to avoid sin. For he had no power of con- 
trary choice. And for that created una voidability in 
the conditions he is damned. The subsequent race is 
brought into existence deserving damnation for being 
what they are as thus brought into existence, and with- 
out any claim to power to avoid that nature and that 
damnation. The fact that they are created through 
second causes, namely, the processes of generation, can- 
not come into a moral consideration, so long as those 
secondary causations are the mere media of successive 
necessitations started from the first cause. If I am ne- 
cessitated into existence by a necessitating cause, which 
necessitating cause is necessitated by a line of necessi- 
tating causes, started by a first cause, I am necessitated 
into existence by that first cause, no matter how long 
the chain or how many the links. The first cause is 
author of the last effect. Birth, then, in this argument, 
differs nothing from creation. If I am guilty for being 
born bad, I am equally guilty for being created bad. 
To be born is to be created through a series of neces- 
sitative secondary causes. 2. God, according to neces- 
sitarianism, condemns men for the evil " they are free 
in producing ; " just as free in producing, we reply, as 
a clock-hammer is free in striking. The being, in the 
given case, can no more avoid sinning than the clock- 
hammer can avoid striking. In both cases it is a free- 
15 



226 Statements : Theological and Critical. 



dom to, without a freedom from, the act. Hence, if in 
either case there is damnation, it is damnation for what 
the actor cannot help. He is created to act, under 
those conditions, as he does; and for being created such, 
both in necessary being and necessary action, he is 
damned. 3. But all that Calvinism affirms is that God 
" did not annihilate " the race. No, Professor Lawrence, 
it is not merely non-annihilation, nor non-prevention, 
nor privative non-interference that Calvinism teaches. 
It teaches that God is the necessitative first cause, 
through a straight inevitable line of necessitating sec- 
ond causes, of the man's existence, and of his every act, 
and of his final damnation for that being and act. Ne- 
cessitated to be what he is, to do what he does, of that 
necessitation, God is the necessitator, the necessitator 
who not only negatively precludes any different results 
from any possible existence, but positively necessitates 
that sole result to come into existence. That is, God 
necessitates his existence, his nature, his sin, and his 
damnation for that necessitated nature and sin. Man 
has no adequate ability for different existence, choice, 
act, or destiny. And that is the most appalling 
fatalism. 

Professor Lawrence expressly denies the power of 
contrary choice or volition. When a man volitionates 
sinfully he had no power to volitionate otherwise; he 
could not help willing as he did. He is created a nec- 
essary sinner, a necessary heir of hell. 

And without power for " contrary volition instead," 
there can be no power for " contrary action instead." If 
a man cannot will otherwise than a given way, he can- 
not corporeally act otherwise than a given way. If 
through his eternal existence a man has power but for 
a certain series of volitions, then he has power but for a 
certain series of corporeal motions. What a man must 



Aeminiax Theology. 



227 



will, that he must do. What a man cannot will, that 
he cannot do. The power of willing but thus excludes 
the power of doing otherwise. So that if there be no 
moral, that is, volitional, ability for different choice, 
still less can there be natural, that is, corporeal, power 
for different action. 

Basis of Moral Obligation. 

Dr. Schaff says, " He only is unrighteous who is un- 
der obligations which he does not fulfill ; but God is un- 
der no obligations to his creature, hence can do with him 
what he will. God's will is the absolute and eternal 
norm of righteousness, and all that he does is neces- 
sarily right. There is no norm of righteousness above 
him to which he is subject, else were God not God." 

At this piece of absolutism we stand aghast. A cre- 
ator, forsooth, is under no more "obligation" to pursue 
one course than another with his creatures ! One course 
is as right as another, and any other course is as right 
as this one; so the distinction of right or wrong, as to 
the divine character and conduct, is obliterated, and the 
moral attributes of God are effaced at one fell swoop. 
Of course, the man who holds this absurd and abom- 
inable doctrine need not be troubled at the doctrine 
that God decrees the sin and damns the sinner. The 
imagination of a devil cannot conceive a course which 
God might not just as rightfully pursue as any other 
course. Why, then, does Dr. Schaff attempt to show, 
as he elaborately does, that of all possible courses God 
takes just the one that is the intrinsically right one f 
If righteousness consists in the fulfillment of obliga- 4 
tion, and God can be under no obligation, then God can 
possess no righteousness. And if God, as being under 
no obligation to his creature, can so "do with him as 
he will" that any way of willing would be right and 



228 Statements: Theological axd Critical. 



equally right — then, surely, there can be no one partic- 
ular " norm of eternal right." If a creator, finite or 
infinite, is not bound or obligated to do right and not 
wrong to his creature, why need Dr. SchafF take pains 
even to predicate right of God's will at all ? But it is 
an appalling doctrine that a creator is under no obliga- 
tion of specific right toward his creature. If a father 
owes duties to the child he begets, much more a cre- 
ator to the being he originates. To say that because 
he created him he could do no injustice to him, that 
the creature has no claim of justice or goodness from 
him, is a truly accursed absurdity; absurdity, because 
contradictory to our intuitive reason; accursed, because 
absolutely abhorrent to our moral sense. The talk about 
such an obligation being " above him," and so undeif y- 
ing God, is the shallowest of ad captandmn. It is like 
an Eastern despot's saying, in an old play, that he is 
" above slavery to his promise," as if absolution from 
moral obligation was any elevation, or subjection to it 
any degradation, to any being. Did Abraham think it 
any degradation in the Judge of all the earth to be ob- 
ligated to do not wrong but right ? Did the apostle 
think it any degradation that God cannot lie? Is not 
God, as the self -existent being, under necessity to exist; 
and is not that necessity just as truly " above him " as 
moral obligation ? Does the necessity under which God 
is to be omniscient and omnipotent, undeif y him? 
Surely he does not cease to be God because he must be 
God. Neither does he cease to be God because he is 
under moral obligation to be a righteous God. Nay, 
the necessity of that very " eternal norm of right," 
which Dr. Schaff holds, is as truly upon God and " over 
him," and so undeifies God as truly as the view he op- 
poses. And if " all he does is necessarily right," is he 
not under a necessity of doing and being right, with a 



Arminian Theology. 



229 



necessity " above him," and, therefore, no longer God ? 
The being morally obligated to right no more degrades 
him than the fact that "all he does is necessarily 
right." 

Dr. Shedd's Doctrine of Free Agency. 

Dr. Shedd's Essay on Original Sin (originally an 
article in the Christian Review) is, with due credit 
given, very much a summary of the treatment of that 
subject in Mailer's Doctrine of Sin. We wish Dr. Shedd 
had clothed that whole work in his powerful English. 
We may condense his condensation of Milller, so far as 
our purposes are concerned, to the following points : 
1. Sin is not so much an act as a " nature" or " state" 
and as such is guilty and damnable. 2. This nature is 
" a product," namely, a product of the human will, and 
depravity lies properly " in the will," and consists in 
the state of free self-determining, permanent tendency, 
or tending of the will in an evil direction. But,3. The 
will is not the more volitional faculty, but is inclusive 
of the affections, emotions, intellections ; the whole man 
himself viewed as determined in unity to a given direc- 
tion. 4. The origin of this tendency, as well as its spe- 
cific volitions, is too deep for the recognition of con- 
sciousness ; and, 5. Hence it is to be considered as tak- 
ing its origin in our unconscious sinning in Adam. In 
all this Dr. Shedd conceives that he is reconciling the 
antithetic points, that sin is a nature and is yet respon- 
sible ; and he congratulates himself that thus the in- 
tuitions of the soul are satisfied by our reinstatement 
on the old grounds of the creeds and theologies at and 
succeeding the Reformation. We believe, on the con- 
trary, that it is an advance backicard. Let us review 
the points. 

No relief of the intuitional distress at a nature's being: 
held as a guilt can be derived from holding that nature 



230 Statements: Theological and Critical. 



to be a fixed, necessitated, everflovving tendency of the 
will. To aid the relief by such prefixes as," free" and 
" self-determined," is to cure a fatal disease with medical 
talk. When will is so defined as to make it include 
the entire structure of the soul, the advances made by 
modern psychology are ignored. We are, by a retro- 
grade movement, made to identify will not merely, like 
Edwards, with the necessitated emotions and sensibili- 
ties ; but, like a still earlier and cruder mental analysis, 
to petrify it into the necessitated intellections and 
even into the impressions of external objects upon the 
sensorium. All this brings us back upon the old and 
execrable dogma that a necessitated nature is responsi- 
ble ; that a being, a race, a universe, may be brought 
into a condition of fixed evil, and damned for being so. 
Upon that dogma all our moral intuitions rise up and 
pronounce a reprobation, a sacred curse. We treat it 
with no respect or ceremony. It is diabolical, dishon- 
oring God and man, and has no fitting home this side 
of its infernal birthplace. 

Of what use is it for Dr. Shedd at this point to say, 
" Were this nature created and put into man, as an 
intellectual nature or as a particular temper.iment is put 
into him by the Creator of all things, it would not be a 
responsible and guilty nature, nor would man be a child 
of wrath? But it does not thus originate. It has its 
origin in the free and responsible use of that voluntary 
power which God has created and placed in the human 
soul as its most central, most mysterious, and most haz- 
ardous endowment. It is a self-determined nature — 
that is, a nature originated in a will, and by a will." 
The man with his actions is as truly molded ; he receives 
as truly a necessitated, made nature from God as if he 
were run by a forger's hand, like molten metal in a ma- 
trice, to a statuary's model. A necessitated motion is as 



Arminian Theology. 



231 



irresponsible as a necessitated being. A nature consist- 
ing of a fixed mode of action is just as guiltless as a 
nature consisting of a fixed shape of substance. What 
boots it me, whether a superior being damns me for a 
necessitated doing or a necessitated being ? Justice can 
just as readily hold me condemned for a necessary es- 
sence as for a necessary quality ; and for a necessary 
quality as for a necessary operation : for a necessary 
operation is a property, and a property is but the essence 
manifest. God can as well necessitate me to be a certain 
thing, and then damn me for it, as necessitate me to do a 
certain thing and damn me for it. For herein doing is 
being • for doing is nothing but necessitated changing 
states of necessitated being. Yonder metallic shrub, 
shaped by the cunning hand of modern art, standing 
with its stately stalk, lifts aloft a little wilderness of fo- 
liage and vines, most light and airy to the eye; but those 
clustering festoons and the rigid stalk are, alas ! alike 
— cast-iron ! So the stalk of a necessitated nature and 
the wildest wreathings of necessitated action are alike 
cast-iro?i — irresponsibly fatalistic. The actions and be- 
ing are one inseparable piece, one being, one nature. 
And this doing-being is created by God ; for it is ne- 
cessitated by him into existence, and to necessitate into 
existence is to create. 

Nor herein does generation differ from creation. 
For God to set into necessary succession a series of 
matrices, of fixed and by him necessitated forms, regu- 
lated by him with necessitated modes, and then to push 
a quantity of being through them, is as fixedly to mold 
the last shape of the series of the forms of being as if he 
had created it. No matter through how lengthened a 
series of wombs I derive my being from the Maker's 
hand ; if no free, unnecessitated, alternative will has 
intervened, I am as truly (so far as responsibility is con- 



232 Statements : Theological and Ceitical. 



cerned) created as if I were first in the series. And if 
my substance, qualities, and operations are all equally 
necessitated, then they are all equally irresponsible. 

This cast-iron necessitation is not softened by ex- 
pressing its quality under those fine old Arminian epi- 
thets that were invented and appropriated to express 
non-necessity, and which still, to the popular heart, have 
the ring of liberty, such as free, self -deter mining, and 
originating. It is a poor verbal solace which our fatal- 
istic brethren so artificially construct for themselves, 
this carefully predefining all the terms of libertarianism 
into a fatalistic meaning in order to express their dog- 
ma in formulae that sound like freedom, and so seem to 
accord with our intuitions. Before they are done these 
gentlemen find that they have given our whole theolog- 
ical vocabulary a double meaning. Theology becomes 
a duplicate science. Its nomenclature is a system of 
double-entendres. It has a complete strabismus. Its 
leading phrases have an outside and an inside meaning 
— outside Arminian, inside Calvinistic. The same gen- 
tleman is giving, in the same terms, two hostile theol- 
ogies. He can, in the same words, preach Arminian- 
ism ad populum, and lecture Augustinianism ad clerum. 

Should the leading paleontologist of the age announce 
to the world this proposition — The animal fossils of 
geology are nothing but plastic forms spontaneously pro- 
duced by unconscious nature — the world would wait in 
rapt attention to hear his proof. If, however, in his 
exposition, he should define plastic to mean "born in the 
process of natural generation," and u forms " to mean 
" once living animal bodies," and " unconscious nature 99 
to mean " a formative scheme in the hands of the living 
God," we think his proposition would be pronounced a 
positive imposture. And now, when a theologian an- 
nounces, "A nature is sinful and guilty because it is a 



Aeminian Theology. 



233 



product ; a product of the free, self -determining, self- 
originating will," we should expect its amplification in a 
clear Arminian exposition. But when he comes to defini- 
tion, and makes " will" signify the entire stereotype-fixed 
nature of the agent ; and " free " to signify a limitation 
to one sole course or state ; and "self-determining" to 
exclude all power of alternative action, and to mean an 
energetic forth-putting in a solely possible direction ; 
and " self-origination " to mean necessitative causation, 
we think he rivals the imposture of his paleontological 
brother. To the paleontologist the hearers would say, 
if you mean that the fossils are petrifactions of once 
living animals, why not say so without a set of words 
defined out of their ordinary sense. And to the theo- 
logian we would say, if you mean that a nature is sin- 
ful and guilty because its whole fixed being, by neces- 
sity, projects a series of necessitated volitions, why not 
say so ? Why must nature mean a series of volitions, 
icill mean the entire necessitated soul, free mean circum- 
scribed, self -deter mining mean limited to a solely possi- 
ble terminus, and self -origination mean automatic pro- 
jection ? In short, why, unless there be a settled predis- 
position to self-deception, must a principle be clothed in 
language that seems to express its contradictory ? 

But Dr. Shedd (after Mtiller) maintains that this per- 
manent current of our will, inclusive of our whole soul 
as agent, which constitutes our depraved " nature," 
resides and generally acts in n region below the reach of 
consciousness, and yet is none the less guilty and deserv- 
ing the divine wrath. Men, as matter of fact, are per- 
petually sinning, without knowing what they are about, 
and a large share of moral effort is to be expended in 
bringing them to a consciousness of sin. " How often 
the Christian finds himself already in a train of thought 
or of feeling that is contrary to the divine law. Notice 



234 Statements : Theological axd Critical. 



that be did not go into this train of thought or feeling 
deliberately, and with a distinct consciousness of what 
he was doing. The first he knows is, that he is already 
caught in the process. Thought and feeling in this in- 
stance have been unconsciously exercised in accordance 
with that central and abiding determination of the will 
toward self of which we have spoken ; in other words, 
the will has been unconsciously putting forth iis action, 
in and through the pow T ers of thought and feeling, as 
the self-reproach and sense of guilt consequent upon 
such exercises of the soul, are proof positive. The mo- 
ment the Christian man comes to distinct consciousness 
in regard to this action that has been going on, 6 with- 
out his thinking of it' (as we say in common parlance), 
he acknowledges it as criminal action, responsible 
action, action of the will. The fact that he was 
not thinking — that the will was acting unconsciously 
— subtracts nothing from his sense of guilt in the 
case." Dr. Shedd conceives this volitioning below 
the reach of consciousness to be a curious, surprising 
fact ; the dark problem of its blended unconsciousness 
and irresponsibility he feels, but does not attempt to 
solve. He unfolds its darkness without a ray of light; 
he deepens the snarl but gives no clew. The solution, 
we think (overstretching the homeopathic maxim that 
"like cures like"), is contained in the very cause of the 
difficulty, " unconsciousness." 

For, not only are there unconscious volitions, "but there 
is, in the same sense of the word, an unconscious con- 
sciousness. All consciousness is properly unconscious. 
If consciousness be, as Dr. Shedd uses the word, an inspec- 
tion of our own thoughts, then while we are inspecting 
we are not inspecting our inspecting. Otherwise Ave 
are involved in an infinite series of inspections of inspec- 
tions. If there be in that deep substratal region of the 



Aeminian Theology. 



235 



mind an unconscious, or rather subconscious, series of 
volitions, there is also a subconscious consciousness of 
those volitions. Surely if the mind be choosing, it is 
also perceiving the object of its choosing; it is cogniz- 
ing, comparing, preferring motives, motives ethical and 
non-ethical, and the whole apparatus of free-agency- is 
in motion. The moral perceptions are as able to work 
subconsciously as any other faculties. The conscious- 
ness is truly enough also at work; only all the move- 
ments are so intense and absorbing that the exterior 
recollective consciousness cannot recall and re-present 
them. 

This underlying region of thought needs more analy- 
sis than we have room to give it. Dr. Shedd, as well as 
Muller, has, we think, failed to explore or properly com- 
prehend it. But Ave may add the thought, that our 
moral nature is doubtless as truly in perpetual action as 
any other of our perceptive powers. An ethical quality 
in an object or combination is as readily perceived as 
any other quality, and with the same sort of conscious- 
ness or unconsciousness ; and that ethical quality may 
be accepted or rejected as a motive by the free-will as 
any other quality, and so be as truly a matter of re- 
sponsibility as if the recollective consciousness could 
subsequently call it up into the clearest light and most 
graphic form. Let the eye gaze upon a variegated car- 
pet, and perception may take in (unconsciously, it may 
be called) every single hue ; yet not one of them is sin- 
gled out, isolated, noticed, though every one be felt, 
and be capable, each one, of being a motive of action. 
TVlien the Christian specified by Dr. Shedd "finds" 
himself " caught " in putting forth wrong volitional 
action, did he first learn, after the conscious recognition, 
that the volitions were wicked? No. He knew it all 
the while. He knew the wrong, and chose the wrong; 



236 Statements : Theological and Ckitical. 



both with an equal consciousness or unconsciousness, 
or subconsciousness. In that same sphere of subcon- 
sciousness a man may avoid sin as well as accept it; 
may apostatize from good or repent of evil ; may indulge 
in crime, or walk the ways of righteousness. The 
thoughts within that region are not necessarily infini- 
tesimal or dim ; they may be the most intense and 
absorbing topics of our lives, and all the more uncon- 
scious because they leave no part of the mind at leisure 
to perform its introspections.* The problem of their 
responsibility, therefore, seems to us not so difficult of 
solution. 

It is a nimble leap of logic that would infer that be- 
cause we sin so " unconsciously," therefore we may have 
sinned dormantly in Adam's sin. Neither Muller nor 
Shedd has, we fear, elucidated the enigma. Both are 
masterly theologians, but they have not, perhaps, mas- 
tered that problem. 

"Shall" and "Will." 

One of the most remarkable pro-Calvinistic uses of 
words has been perhaps, in some degree, the simple re- 
sult of time. It is one to which we have seen no refer- 
ence; and though pervading the whole Bible, is very 
likely to be overlooked even by Arminian revisers. It 
is the use of the future shall where our modern vernac- 
ular requires will. At the present day, at least, this 
has become a very false translation, for our uses of shall 
has an imperative force, just as it has always possessed 
in the Decalogue. Should a parent in our time say 

* De Quincey says, " Rightly it is said of utter, utter misery, that 
it 'cannot be remembered.' Itself as a rememberable thing is swal- 
lowed up in its own chaos." And he quotes from Coleridge's Remorse 
the lines, 

" I stood in unimaginable trance, 

An agony which cannot be remembered." 



Aeminian Theology. 



237 



to his sons at table, " One of you shall betray me " 
(John xiii, 21), it would be understood as a command. 
And so Rom. ix, 12, "The elder shall serve the young- 
er," makes an imperative of a simple future. It may 
be indeed said that God's futures are imperatives. 
Whether that be so or not, we should allow God to use 
his futures instead of imperatives when he pleases. 

Under this class of the false shall comes, perhaps, one 
of the most curiously mistranslated, interpolated, mis- 
quoted, and abused texts in the Bible. It is Psa. cx, 3, 
" Thy people shall be willing in the day of thy power." 
This is a military Messianic psalm, and the words really 
mean, Thy people [are] ready in the day of thy military 
gathering. There is really no verb at all; and the shall 
be of the translators, as well as our are, is an interpo- 
lation. Then the shall is made a false imperative. 
Next follows a laughable mutilation of the text, cur- 
rent among our Calvinistic brethren, not only colloqui- 
ally and among the people, but even disclosing itself in 
the deliberate writing* of the best scholars. The false 
shall be willing is transmuted into a falser make willing. 
We have, for instance, a venerable volume by old Dr. 
Spring, of New England, on Free Agency (which abol- 
ishes all free agency), in which this text k quoted as a 
title-page motto, correctly according to our translation, 
but in entire perversion of the textual meaning. Next, 
our readers will find it used by Rev. Mr. Tyler, as it 
happens, on page 311 of the Methodist Quarterly Re- 
view, 1873, mutilated into "make willing." Next, we 
will find it in Dr. Shedd's History of Doctrines, vol. ii, 
p. 73, thus mutilated: "Makes him willing in the day 
of God's power." Next, we will find it in Hodge on 
Romans : " God supersedes the necessity of forcing us 
by making us willing in the day of his power." And, 
finally, we grieve to say it, even our friend, Dr. Schafr, 



238 Statements: Theological and Ceitical. 



has inserted a slight finger in this Credit Mobilier, by 
quoting with approbation this same unfortunate pas- 
sage of Dr. Hodge's, in his Romans, p. 95. The same 
mutilation of the text is also in Dr. Hodge's Theology, 
vol. i, page 435. 

Battles of the Commentators. 

As a commentator on single books of the New Testa- 
ment, Dr. Eadie is scarcely surpassed. Less exclusively 
verbal than Ellicott, he is scarcely less accurately philo- 
logical, and his freer range renders his work less arid 
and more readable. He brings in a large amount of 
moral, spiritual, and theological reflection, giving more 
body, roundness, and color to the philological skeleton. 
As a Scotch Presbyterian, he is, of course, professedly 
Calvinistic, though his heart is so Arminian that he 
abundantly contradicts himself, being alternately on 
each side of the Synod of Dort, now chiming with Epis- 
copius and now with Bogerman. In defending his Cal- 
vinism he takes the ground of mere foreknowledge, which 
is Arminianism. Anon, he tells us that predestination 
and freedom are irreconcilable, but both true, which is 
virtual confession that Calvinism as a solution of divine 
government is failure. Finally, as if to save his ortho- 
doxy, he chalks up to true fatalism, yet with an obvious 
feeling that his own fatalistic statement has in it not a 
little of the appalling. 

With entire conclusiveness Dr. Eadie, in A Commen- 
tary on the Greek Text of the Epistle to the Ephesians^ 
shows that svdonta, rendered " good pleasure," in Eph. 
i, 5, should be rendered "benignant purpose," that is, 
benevolence or beneficence. We are, then, "predesti- 
nated," not " according to the good pleasure of his will," 
but according to the beneficence of his will. One of the 
pet phrases of arbitrary absolutism, therefore, in which 



Aeminiax Theology. 



239 



Calvinism intrenches itself, is demolished. In both the 
Septuagint and the New Testament the use of the word 
is uniform; and so an English phrase which sounds like 
a curt, peremptory, omnipotent silencer upon all inquiry, 
is really a term for divine liberality. The election of 
Ephesians is not based by St. Paul in an austere, divine 
reserve, but in an open, free beneficence. 

Our hearty thanks are due to the independence and 
honesty of Dr. Eadie, in rescuing this most beautiful 
word, evdofcia, beneficence, from the sad perversion by 
which Calvinism has made it a most repulsive cant term 
for a reasonless despotism on the part of the wise and 
blessed God. This abuse of this sweet word is con- 
stantly occurring in Calvinistic standard writings. 
Thus Calvin: "God hath a sufficient, just cause of his 
election and reprobation in his own will or pleasure" 
And so Archbishop Usher thus stultifies Omniscience 
by making God act by mere will without just cause: 
"There is, indeed, no cause of reprobation in the rep- 
robate that they, rather than others, are passed by of 
God; that is, wholly from the unsearchable depths of 
God's free-will and good pleasure." And so Dr. Eadie's 
countryman, Dr. Dick: "If there was sin in the repro- 
bate, there was sin also in the elect; and we must there- 
fore resolve their opposite allotments into the will of 
God, who gives and withholds his favor according to his 
good pleasure." How men, learned men, good men, 
should be so fascinated with the work of exhibiting 
perpetually so disgusting a caricature of our holy God 
is a problem we attempt not to solve. 

But one of the grandest battles of the commentators 
on Ephesians is fought over Eph. ii, 3 : " Were by nature 
the children of wrath, even as others." Does this text 
teach an inborn depravity, depravity in our nature ? 
Does it mean that our nature at birth is under damna- 



240 Statements : Theological and Critical. 



tion ? And this last question truly involves "infant 
damnation." If the child before responsible action is 
damned in the womb, its final damnation is just. Nay, 
the whole race might justly be born and damned, with- 
out an actual sin, and without a Saviour, to hell for- 
ever. And that, as we all know, is the fundamental 
Calvinistic assumption. This assumption is claimed as 
necessary in order to show that the gift of Christ is 
pure " grace ; " and in order to show that a part might 
be elected by pure "good pleasure," and the rest left 
as reprobate, to their own previously damned state. 
For Calvinism this text is a Thermopylae, a narrow pass 
in which it intrenches itself for dear life. 

Dr. Eadie shows conclusively, we think, that " chil- 
dren of wrath " signifies, not, liable to a possible wrath, 
but "involved in wrath," the wrath lying in actual con- 
tact on the object. So far Calvinism and Arminianism 
must agree. " Children of disobedience," in verse two, 
is in the Greek, "sons of disobedience;" and Ellicotfc 
and others say that " children " implies a stronger and 
nearer connection than " sons." The statement is, how- 
ever, untenable. Children of " wisdom," in Matt, xi, 1 9, 
expresses no stronger relation than "sons of disobedi- 
ence." Yet these, and perhaps all the parallel phrases, 
imply contactual relation. 

But the vital contest is upon cpvaei, "by nature." 
And here we think the definition of nature credited to 
the German commentator Harless is the true one: that 
which is born or grows, in antithesis to that which is 
made. Nature is never made ; it is born and becomes. 
Dr. Eadie illustrates this with a rich variety of Greek 
quotations. He does not deny that the term is some- 
times used as second nature ; the superstratum depos- 
ited by habit over our primary character. Nor could 
he deny, we suppose, that the superstratum of regen- 



Arminian Theology. 



241 



eration, though a result of an act, and truly made, is 
called a nature. Nor, although God neither is born nor 
grows, do we hesitate to speak of the divine nature. 
Yet Dr. Eadie is justified in maintaining that these sec- 
ondary and sporadic meanings cannot stand before the 
normal and ordinary definition. The true ordinary 
meaning of " nature " must be accepted. 

Dr. Meyer, however, denies that a nature in this sense, 
under wrath, is Paul's doctrine. He maintains that the 
apostle teaches that all penalty is the result of actual 
sin, and all wrath rests upon a developed nature. He 
refers to Rom. v, 12, where it is said that all die because 
all sin. When asked, then, why infants penally die, he 
replies, the apostle did not think of that question ! This 
reply will not satisfy "New England theology," nor 
our poor New York theology either. Macknight, fol- 
lowed by Dr. Clarke, denies that original sin appears 
in the text, and both quote a number of Greek passages 
in support of their views. Yet in every one of these 
quotations the predicate is truly affirmed of the inborn 
nature base. Wesley, on the other hand, explicitly 
affirms that Paul lays the wrath of God upon our inborn 
nature. Against the Pelagian view, which denies orig- 
inal depravation to be found in this text, Dr. Eadie's 
victory is, we think, complete. Standing alone, the 
text would not be sufficient to establish original sin; 
but coming in as auxiliary with Horn, v, 12-21, it is a 
very powerful and decisive confirmation. 

Evil Entailed by Natural Consequence. 

Unfallen Adam, w r e suppose, was, by the indwelling 
Spirit and the power of the tree of life (emblem, per- 
haps, of immortalization through Christ), placed upon a 
high plane of being. The disintegration of the mate- 
rial organism, and consequent disease and death, w T ere 
16 



242 Statements : Theological and Critical. 



prevented. In this compound nature of spirit and body, 
angel and animal, the spirit so elevated even the ani- 
mal that Adam realized, approximately, Paul's concep- 
tion of u spiritual body." See oar note on 1 Cor. xv, 44. 
The fatal act of sin sunk him as animal at once from 
this high plane of supernature to the conditions of ani- 
mal nature; on the same plane essentially, so far forth 
as animal, with the other animal races, and so to mate- 
rial disintegration, pain, disease, and dissolution. Yet, 
though as animal he passes through death, his higher 
nature secures, through unconditional redemption, spir- 
itual immortality and bodily resurrection. 

This was unquestionable personal penalty for guilt 
upon Adam. But it was, through the universal and 
fundamental law of propagation by which like parent 
generates like offspring, that bodily and mental suffer- 
ing were entailed upon Adam's posterity by natural 
consequence, and not by penal infliction; through propa- 
gative law, and not by judicial guilt. When a prime 
minister for some offense is degraded to the ranks of 
his majesty's subjects, that is upon him penalty for 
guilt. But when he begets children, and they are sub- 
jected to the same humble level, that is natural propa- 
gative consequence. The rest of his majesty's subjects 
were born to those conditions without any offense or 
royal displeasure. And so God might, without penalty 
or injustice, have created man in nature conditions, like 
other animals, without any preceding fall. He so cre- 
ated races of animals of different grades, to furnish out 
the varieties of nature, before the fall. Moreover, the 
various grades of being are suitably placed in surround- 
ings adapted to their nature. Air, earth, and water, 
mountain-top, plain, and marsh, are all conditions suited 
for their proper occupants. And so it was fitting that 
man, the immortal animal, should be placed in a world 



Aeminian Theology. 



2±3 



suited alike to his immortal probationary prospects, and 
to his transiency as a dying race. He is a normal sin- 
ner in a humble world, amid temptations and trials and 
tasks calculated to form his character, if he will, to a 
lofty hardihood of virtue, piety, and immortal rewards. 
Other animals testify that they are endowed with an 
existence, with all its disqualifications, so happy that 
they are ready to flee from death and fight for life 
with all their will and power. They are in covenant 
with God to accept all the ills for the basal good with 
which those ills are compensated. The law of satis- 
factory compensation is the divine justification for 
their creation. Into that contract man has entered ; 
and if he breaks his contract and commits suicide, it is 
the result either of insanity or of a desperate wicked- 
ness by himself acquired. The animal races are not 
punished with the natures bestowed upon them. The 
beautiful so-called " bird of paradise " is not punished 
because he does not live in Paradise. A gnat is not 
punished because he is not an eagle, nor a mouse be- 
cause he is not a lion. So neither is man punished be- 
cause he is not an angel, and does not live in Eden "as 
his first progenitor did. 

But while the progeny thus lowly placed are not pun- 
ished for a sin not their own, this dispensation from God 
is an exhibition in the sacred history of our world and 
of the universe of the fatal nature of sin. It shows how 
a one sin and how a first sin may entail immeasurable 
ruin. The first alcoholic glass may entail upon the 
drinker uncontrollable appetite, depravation, death, and 
hell. Adam, it is popularly said, only ate an " apple;" 
and this man only drank the grape; and both apple and 
grape bring perdition. And this analogy, ever repeated 
in human history, explains the apparent smallness of 
Adam's probationary test at which skepticism cavils. 



244 Statements : Theological and Critical. 



The Issue Between Arminianism and Calvinism. 

The essential and universal issue which Wesleyan 
Arminianism has taken against Calvinism may mostly 
be stated in a single proposition. We deny and they 
affirm the genetic principle that the divine government 
may inalter natively secure the sin of any being, and then 
justly damn him eternally for the sin so secured. We 
deny, and they affirm, or assume, that a being can be 
justly damned for sin which he never had the adequate 
power of avoiding. We affirm that adequate, unneu- 
tralized power to a volition is necessary to responsibil- 
ity; unless, always, that power has been responsibly for- 
feited. 

Calvinism affirms, or assumes, that God may damn 
beings for sin which they had no adequate power to 
avoid, in at least the following seven cases: 

1. Original Sin and Ability. — The whole human 
race, as fallen in Adam, might be justly damned with 
an absolutely universal damnation, without any Saviour 
being interposed or any adequate power of avoidance. 
At such a view we stand aghast with abhorrence. Ar- 
minians hold that a " gracious ability " is necessary to 
the responsibility of fallen man; Taylorism holds that 
fallen man has still "natural ability" to repent — his de- 
pravity consisting in the free uniformity of voluntary 
sinning. This last is semi-Pelagianism. We may add 
that we use the word Taylorism not in disrespect, but 
as a brief term to designate a systematized view; just 
as we use the word Arminianism. 

2. Eternal Reprobation. — From the above first 
Calvinistic point it follows, & fortiori, that God might 
pass by as reprobate, and leave in eternal damnation, 
those who, without any adequate volitional power of 
avoidance of their own, are involved in the guilt of 



Arminian Theology. 



245 



Adam's sin, so that the reprobates are damned for what 
they never could avoid. About the most appalling of 
dogmas ! 

3. Infant Damnation. — A fortiori, it is equally just 
for God to pass by and leave in reprobation and eter- 
nal death any or all infants, as they are merely, like 
all the others, damned for what they cannot help. Our 
Arminianism teaches universal infant salvation ; Tay- 
lorism, so far as we know, accords. 

4. Will Power. — A fortiori, again, no adequate vo- 
litional ability, or power of counter choice, is requisite, 
in order to render any choice, or course of choices and 
actions, justly worthy of eternal damnation ; so that, 
again, any being may be justly and eternally damned 
for what he cannot help. Taylorism teaches that the 
agent must possess adequate power of choice contrary 
to strongest motive, though it is certain he will never 
exert it. Arminianism teaches such power of counter 
choice unbound by any such certainty. 

5. Fore-ordained Damnation. — By an act of irre- 
spective, unforeknowing fore-ordination, predetermin- 
ing what shall come to pass, the reprobates passed by, 
and intrinsically incapable of repentance, are decre- 
tively consigned to perpetual sin and eternal death. 
So that reprobates are again damned for what they 
cannot help. 

6. Pagan Damnation. — All pagans and other persons 
who never heard of Christ, and never had any means of 
salvation, are justly damned eternally for that want of 
faith in Christ which they cannot help. 

7. Imputation. — Sin may be justly and literally im- 
puted to the innocent, whether the innocent could avoid 
it or not; so that Adam's personal sin may, with strict 
justice, be imputed as guilt in his innocent posterity, 
and the sins of men may be literally imputed in their 



246 Statements : Theological and Critical. 



guilt to Christ, and he suffer infinite punishment in 
strict justice, so that a man may be, by intrinsic jus- 
tice, held responsible for what he did not do and could 
not help. Arminianism denies the transferability of 
guilt or literal punishment. The sin of Adam is not 
imputed to his posterity, nor the sin of man imputed 
to Christ. Taylorism is here rather Arminian. 

Now, whoever holds any one of these seven points, 
must hold it on the generic principle that a man may 
be justly damned for what he cannot help; and, having 
once conceded the principle, he has no defense against 
either of the others. He must, in strict logic, reject or 
accept the whole. He can reject any one only by sum- 
marily rejecting the generic principle on which the 
whole are based. 

From all this we may see two things. First, that 
every variation from genuine Calvinism, on all the points 
in dispute, Original Sin, Imputation, Depravity, Abil- 
ity (as well as Free-will and Necessity}, has been in direc- 
tion toward Arminianism. It has, in every instance, 
either approximated to or coincided with our Method- 
ism: or it has overleaped us and vaulted into semipela- 
gianism. Had we space we might demonstrate this on 
every point. Second, the reason why " New Divinity " 
men, in Calvinistic churches, like Taylor, Beman, Fitch, 
and Finney, were involved in perplexity and contradic- 
tion, is, that they tried to evade the generic principle of 
eternal damnation for the unavoidable on particular 
points, instead of throwing that principle entirely over- 
board, and coming out upon the broad, free platform of 

RESPONSIBILITY ONLY FOR THE AVOIDABLE. 

Dr. Shedd remarks: " The unconditional decree, in ref- 
erence to the non-elect, according to Augustine, is one 
of preterition, or omission, merely. The reprobating 
decree is not accompanied, as the electing decree is, with 



Arminian Theology. 



247 



any direct divine efficiency to secure the result. And 
there is no need of any; for, according to the Augus- 
tinian anthropology, there is no possibility of self-recov- 
ery from a voluntary apostasy, and consequently the 
simple passing by and leaving of the sinful soul to itself 
renders its perdition as certain as if it were brought 
about by a direct divine efficiency." * " There is no need 
of any!" No, indeed; for, as it is damning the infi- 
nite Gorilla is after securing, it must be admitted that 
his hapless victims are very efficiently and thoroughly 
damned without "need of any" direct decree of repro- 
bation. First, by fore-ordination he damns them to hell, 
an eternity before they are born; second, holding them 
guilty, by an atrocious lie, of a sin they never commit- 
ted, he doubly damns them; third, subjecting them to 
a paralysis of soul by which they cannot repent without 
the Spirit, and arbitrarily withholding the Spirit, he 
trebly damns them; finally, hemming them in by over- 
ruling motives to impenitence, without "power of con- 
trary choice," he quadruply damns them. " There is no 
need of any" quintuple damnation, as Dr. Shedd grimly 
and truly says. It is folly to imagine that he has here 
presented the scheme of Calvinistic reprobation plau- 
sibly ! Every fiber of our whole moral nature rises up 
to pronounce it accursed! The polyglot furnishes no 
language to express the depth of unanimous abhor- 
rence with which our readers will salute its awful face. 
Among all the haggard superstitions of the earth, Com- 
parative Theology can furnish no more truly diabolical 
untruth. 

* Shedd's History of Christian Doctrine, vol. ii, pp. TO, 72. 



248 Statements : Theological and Critical. 



METHODISM. 
Methodist Theology from the Oriental Church. 

There is a manifold and striking interest as well as 
profit in contemplating the history, doctrines, institu- 
tions, and general spirit of the Oriental Church. With- 
in its limits is the probable cradle of mankind, and, be- 
yond doubt, the Ararat from which the renewed race 
took its start. Within its boundaries Abraham founded 
the chosen race, and Moses gave the law. There lies 
Palestine, whose " sacred acres " were trodden by His 
holy feet. Let not Rome boast the antiquity of her 
Christianity, or prefer her doubtful claim to the pri- 
macy, or even to the presence of Peter; for the East 
has in her Antioch a more ancient Christianity, a more 
primordial primacy, and a more undoubted Peter. To 
this Oriental mother of us all the entire Western Church 
is but a great body of manifold dissenters, and the pope 
is but an earlier Protestant, no better than Luther. Au- 
gustine has not taught her the doctrine of original sin, 
nor Calvin his decretum horribile, nor Edwards his voli- 
tional fatalism. And to most of our readers there will 
appear something striking in the following remark : 

u The revival of the national Church of Greece con- 
tains many germs of hope for the future. A continuous 
history of Greek theology, from its peculiarities in the 
Eastern Fathers of the third and fourth cenruries, 
through the schools of Constantinople, down to its last 
great effort in the revival of letters in the West, and its 
influence on the Cambridge Platonic divines of the 
Church of England, and, through them, on John Wes- 
ley, in the eighteenth century, is still, I believe, a de- 
sideratum." * 

* From Stanley's Lectures on the History of the Eastern Church. . 



Methodism. 



249 



It is indeed a striking thought, that the youngest vig- 
orous branch of the Christian Church has derived its 
most characteristic theology from the parent trunk. 

Doctrinal Divergences of the Early Methodists. 

With modesty and candor Mr. Tyerman says, in his 
preface to The Oxford Methodists : " The book is not 
a series of written portraits. I make no pretensions 
to artistic skill. I have simply done my best in col- 
lecting facts from every source within my reach, and 
have narrated them as truly and lucidly as I could." 
We deem it unfortunate that the faithfulness in 
gathering facts and the skill in handling them do not 
meet in the same man. Mr. Tyerman has accumu- 
lated a mass of " raw material " for history, leaving 
it almost as raw as he finds it. Yet great thanks 
are due him for what he has done. He has shed a 
clear, broad light upon the life of Wesley, and espe- 
cially, in the present volume, upon the first beginnings 
of the Oxford movement. He has given body and life 
to what were heretofore almost mere names in the Wes- 
leyan history. Clayton, and Broughton, and Ingham, 
and Gambold, if not symmetrical characters, are live 
men. And we trace the misty progress of those orig- 
ines, out from which the figures of the Wesleys and 
Whitefield emerge with such startling life. As an ac- 
companiment to the life of Wesley this volume is inval- 
uable in Methodistic history. 

It was in 172V that four young Oxonians, the two 
Wesleys and Broughton and Kirkham, met to read the 
Greek Testament with devout purpose. In 1735 Wes- 
ley counted his company as "fourteen or fifteen in num- 
ber, all of one heart and mind." Great were their sub- 
sequent divergences both of doctrine and history. 



250 Statements : Theological and Critical. 



Estrangements, and even hostilities, between each other 
mark the subsequent narrative. But, in ^ome form or 
other, nearly every one retained an earnest Christian 
character to the end of his career. 

The points upon which they doctrinally diverged 
were matters of either churchmanship or soteriology. 
They all began strict churchmen, and the influence of 
Clayton infused a large share of ritualism into the Wes- 
leys. And Clayton persevered, a high ritualist, a "Pu- 
seyite" before Pusey, unto the end; haughtily refusing 
to notice the Wesley s after their fall from high-church - 
ianity, and ready to accept the popish descendant of 
the Stuarts as his jure-di 'vino sovereign. Yet who can 
withhold admiration from Clayton's stern, consistent, 
lofty conscientiousness of life? If severe to others, he 
was severe to himself, and his rebuke of sin was sharp- 
ened by his deep sense of responsibility to God as a 
minister of Christ. We are unable to say that he had not 
true justifying faith in Christ. "No more do we believe 
this of Wesley while in his ritualistic era. They did not 
indeed realize the emphatic place of faith in the Chris- 
tian life. They had not performed that conscious act of 
entire self-commitment to Christ by which the vivid evi- 
dence is attained, and the rich communion with Christ, 
and with God through Christ, is established, so that the 
soul springs forward with new life and glad obedience 
in the way of active duty. And hence, when Wesley 
came to that turning-point of self-surrender, he felt his 
heart "strangely warmed" — strangely, because in all his 
ritualistic days he had never felt that warmth. He had 
long served God by severe self -subduing rule; hence- 
forth he serves him with an abounding will and joy. 
Yet he had served God — served God trusting in Christ, 
yet trusting in Christ so distantly that he never came 
within speaking, loving distance of the lover of his soul. 



Methodism. 



251 



The change was so great that Wesley for a long time 
believed that it was a change from death to life, a first 
attainment of justification. 

But as it was the doctrine of justification by faith 
that separated Wesley from the high- churchman, so it 
was their overstatement of that doctrine which repelled 
him from Hervey, Whitefield, and the Moravians, Ing- 
ham and Gambold. As a student of the early Fathers, 
by whom predestination was repudiated as a Gnostic 
heresy, and from his kinship with Jeremy Taylor and 
the other great Arminian and semi-Arminian divines, 
Wesley could never believe that faith was other than 
the free act of the creature, enabled, but not infallibly 
secured, either by the atonement of Christ or the power 
of God. Hence, when Whitefield diverged into the 
heresy of predestination, Wesley smote the blasphe- 
mous dogma with lightning strokes. When Hervey 
taught the crude dogma that the merit of Christ's 
holy actions through his whole life was imputed to a 
certain selected set of mankind, Wesley dealt upon the 
infantile theology of that gentle-spirited writer a very 
few, but very decisive, touches of his terse pen. Ing- 
ham retired to Yorkshire, married a lady of quality, and 
raised a flourishing circle of country churches, of which 
he was installed bishop. Over that blooming garden of 
spiritual life came the "northern blast of Sandemanian- 
ism," the doctrine that carries Calvinism to its consist- 
ent figure, and teaches that the elect is saved with no 
act of his own, but by the divine force carrying him 
panoramically through the motions and movements by 
which he is wheeled into heaven. Under this blast Ing- 
ham's Yorkshire diocese wilted. Wesleyan Methodism 
overspread the shire, leaving, to this day, a few shat- 
tered remnants of the once flourishing field of Ingham's 
evangelic labors. 



252 Statements : Theological and Critical. 



We thus, by comparison, see what was the secret of 
the success of the Wesleyan movement. Rejecting the 
cumbrous rigidity of high-churchmanship on the one 
hand, and the ultraistic extreme of the doctrine of jus- 
tification by faith on the other, Wesley retained an en- 
ergetic Church polity and a true doctrine of salvation 
through Christ. To these he added the intensifying 
doctrines of the conscious witness of the Spirit and en- 
tire sanctification, and insisted on their actual realiza- 
tion in experimental life. His entire system of polity, 
of doctrine, and of life, thereby strangely presaged and 
harmonized with modern freedom and activity. It was 
an anticipation of our age. It was the morning-break, 
in the religious world, of the modern life. 

A Healthy Church requires Symmetry of Doctrine. 

The following passage from Dr. Rainy's Delivery 
and Development of Christian Doctrine, on the for- 
mation of heresies, may seem to some readers curiously 
suggestive in regard to some movements in our own 
Church at the present hour : " Commonly, as has often 
been remarked, these heresies arise in some such way 
as this : Some Christian idea, or some one aspect of a 
Christian principle, was laid hold of in an intensely ex- 
clusive manner. It began to be urged willfully and im- 
patiently. It was developed extravagantly, and conclu- 
sions were urged as needful in order to its being duly 
recognized and held, which were perverse and errone- 
ous, and traversed some other principle of Scripture 
teaching ; and, finally, the process was cornered by the 
explicit denial of the part of Scripture teaching which 
thus interfered with the tendencies that were at work. 
The Church, meanwhile, could win a complete and real 
victory over such a heresy only in one way, namely, by 
doing justice to whatever truth the diverging tendency rep- 



Methodism. 



253 



resented, but at the same time evincing its consistency 
with the other truths which that tendency had neglected 
or opposed. Such a process could not fail to educate the 
Church's mind, and force her on to a more full, exact, 
and fruitful acquaintance with the whole relations of 
truth as unfolded in the Scriptures." 

All experience shows that a healthy state of a Church 
requires that there should not be an exaggerating em- 
phasis laid upon one truth, but that the symmetry of 
Christian doctrine should be preserved both in preach- 
ing and in Christian effort. 

The Wesleyan doctrine of attaining a higher plane 
of Christian holiness, of " power " against temptation 
and sin and "cleaving to God," seems to be infusing 
itself spontaneously into the belief and acceptance of all 
earnest evangelical Christians. The doctrine is all the 
more powerful by taking " its place " in a symmetrical 
Christian faith and practice. Says Mr. Moody, " Some 
temperance men make a grand mistake, and that is — 
they lug in the question every time they get the chance. 
Every thing in its own place ! If I go to a prayer- 
meeting I do not want to hear temperance or the higher 
Christian life. There is a man who comes to our noon- 
day meetings ; no matter what the subject is, he gets 
up and talks every day on the higher life. A friend, in 
going out of the meeting one day, said to me. ' I like 
a fiddle with a thousand strings, but not with this one 
of higher life played on every day.' " 

The power of these evangelists resides in their great 
faith and their gift of realizing the old truths. Says Mr. 
Moody, I believe that heaven is real, hell is real, the 
devil real. God is real. If God did not wish us to speak 
about heaven, he would not have put so much about it 
in the Bible." And what a thrilling illustration of the 
atonement is here! "The Spanish authorities in Cuba 



25-i Statements : Theological and Critical. 

had arrested a man who, though born in England, was a 
naturalized United States citizen. He was charged 
with conspiracy against the government, and ordered 
to be shot. But the consuls of both England and Amer- 
ica believed the man to be innocent, and used all the 
persuasion and entreaty in their power for his release, 
but the proud Spaniards haughtily disregarded their 
petition. The hour of execution had now arrived, and 
a company of soldiers was drawn up in line. The con- 
demned English-American walked out before them, 
calmly awaiting his fate. He stood at the foot of the 
grave already dug, his coat off, and his hands pinioned 
behind him. The officer ordered his men to load, and 
at the word ' present ' they brought their rifles to their 
shoulders, awaiting the word of command to fire. In 
the awful suspense, suddenly there sprang forward from 
the by-standers the two consuls; the one drawing from 
his breast the Stars and Stripes, wrapped it right round 
the prisoner, while the other threw over him the Union 
Jack. The consuls now stood on either side, defying 
the Spaniards, who dared not fire on the flags of two of 
the mightiest nations under heaven, and the man was 
released, and proved his innocence to the satisfaction of 
the authorities." 

Methodist Orthodoxy. 

The Westminster Review (port raying English Method- 
ism from an antichristian stand-point) complains of its 
rigid orthodoxy. In our own country its picture would 
be largely false. Methodism is a voluntary association of 
free minds agreeing in certain fundamental views of the 
religion that is most truly Christian and most conducive 
to the good of the world. It claims no right to compel 
any man to join its association or accept its views ; but 
it does claim the right of not allowing its pulpits or other 



Methodism. 



253 



institutes to be used for the purpose of assailing and 
destroying its own fundamental principles. Like every 
other voluntary association for a philanthropic purpose, 
it has a right to limit its own principles and actions, and 
to confine its voluntary agents and ministers, young or 
old, within those long-held and well-known limitations. 
The measures taken to secure itself from the intrusion 
of hostile or hypocritical members are perfectly wise 
and right. The attempt, like this of the Westminster, 
to caricature and vilify them with exaggerating, sneer- 
ing, or opprobrious words and phrases, is itself proscrip- 
tive and persecuting. So far as the young candidate 
for the ministry is concerned, he is as free in choosing 
his course as any young man can be in choosing any 
course of life. It is no fault of ours, it is the misfortune 
of our finite human nature, that a large part of our most 
momentous choices for life have to be made in the imma- 
turity of youth. We believe that few make a happier 
choice than does the young man qualified by nature and 
grace to enter the Methodist ministry. Many, no doubt, 
mistake their call ; but those who therein do obey a truly 
divine call, need desire or envy no other calling. To 
our infidel reviewer the Conference is old Spider invit- 
ing young Mr. Fly into his webby parlor ; to us it is a 
divine messenger calling youth and holy ambition to 
the field of highest usefulness — to a grace and glory 
here, and a crown hereafter. So far as the aged minis- 
ter is concerned, to our view the reviewer's picture is 
shamefully false. Where sincere changes of opinion in 
advanced life have taken place, what our Church has 
asked is that her pulpits and institutions be not used or 
abused to propagate doctrines which she condemns. To 
the piety and services of the dissenter she still pays 
commensurate respect. If he feels bound to proclaim 
his new tenets, she rightfully excludes him from using 



256 Statements : Theological and Critical. 



her institutes or her communion for the purpose. 
Whatever inconveniences result to him from making 
a change in his relations are outside the direct aims of 
the Church in excluding him, and are results arising 
from the nature of things, and not from any ecclesias- 
tical purpose. We believe that all such truly conscien- 
tious cases are treated with the most humane and fra- 
ternal consideration. 

Methodism at Wesley's Death. 

At the death of Wesley, as is apparent from Dr. Ste- 
vens's Methodism, there was a sudden change from a 
spontaneous monarchy to a sort of democracy that won- 
derfully looked like anarchy, and seemed to threaten 
disintegration. The crisis concentrated the moral forces 
of the Methodist body. But it was no doubt the pow- 
erful religious life which constituted the conservating 
and organizing power. The hour does not always 
bring the man ; but this hour did develop and furnish 
the men. The working of a great Providence was 
scarcely more marked in the adaptation of the instru- 
ments for the founding than for this continuation of the 
movement. These first sons of the first founders proved 
amply competent to maintain, adorn, and extend their 
heritage. And nothing is more striking than the dra- 
matic variety and fitness for their part of the individual 
characters of this second generation. There was, first, 
Watson, the systematic theologian, surpassing all his 
predecessors, and as yet without a successor ; there w r as 
Bunting, the statesmanly " pilot that weathered the 
storm ; " there was Clarke, the peerless among English 
general commentators ; there was Newton, the prince of 
preachers ; and far into this age extend the labors of 
Coke, the world-wide missionary evangelist. Under the 
labors of such men Wesleyan Methodism stands out 



Methodism. 



257 



from the diverging and vanishing branches of Calvinistic 
and Church Methodism so called, vindicated, energized, 
extending, triumphing ; overcoming its difficulties, and 
flinging out its projects with a bold and boundless 
expansion. 

A striking feature of the entire movement is its joy- 
ousness. The true Methodist, the entire Methodist 
body, is jubilant with the thought that it has found a 
prize which is enriched by the privilege of impartation, 
and all the more enjoyable from the increasing multi- 
tude of its participants. In a large amount of modern 
evangelism we recognize a stern, solemn, not happy 
spirit, partaking less of the dispensation of Jesus than 
of John the Baptist. But the whole tone of the his- 
tory as given by Dr. Stevens is rich and exultant. It 
reads like the Acts of the Apostles just after the day of 
Pentecost. 

Largely the practical and successful working of Meth- 
odism proper is the result of its actual theology. There 
is a large number of well-read ministers who imagine 
that Methodism has pretty much no doctrines at all. 
They give our founders and our body credit for a con- 
geries of religious notions, and many of them would, 
we suppose, be surprised to learn that a consistent, sym- 
metrical system of theology, strikingly accordant with 
the intuitions of the human soul, and dictated to us by 
the most obvious meaning of Scripture, forms, in our own 
estimate, a large share of our power to win sinners to 
Christ, to maintain the unity of our faith, and to spread 
the Gospel over the world. 

Methodism and TJnitarianism. 

Dr. Hedge says of the Paleyan age, that its " practical 
evil . . . found a corrective in the rise of Methodism. 
That new dispensation of the Gospel reacted with heal- 
17 



258 



Statements : Theological and Critical. 



ing power on the Church." But we reply, Methodism, 
strangely as it may sound, is founded upon, and is a 
necessary consequence of, Paleyism. Whitefield and 
Wesley assumed the evidences of Paley to be valid, and 
made the historical miraculous Christ, with his actual 
vicarious atonement, the basis of their " dispensation." 
Take away these, and these men were powerless. And 
take away these, and every dispensation will be power- 
less. No religion can live and work without its body of 
historical facts. Dean Milman pregnantly remarks 
that "no Pelagian ever has or ever will work a religious 
revolution." With the implements that these writers 
and their editor would furnish, the indifferentism and 
skepticism whose reign closed the last century could 
never have been dethroned. It would only have found 
" in the lowest deep a lower deep." 

While Methodism was working out her humble and 
hard-working dispensation, Unitarianism was the dead- 
est part of the Christian Church. President Kirkland 
and his contemporaries were the driest of Lockians, the 
tamest of Paleyans, reducing Christianity to the most 
naked history, and preaching a Gospel of natural ethics. 
To them, Methodism and fanaticism were different ways 
of spelling the same word. What has wrought the 
change by which our graceful Unitarian can call Meth- 
odism "a new dispensation of the Gospel?" A fash- 
ionable philosophy. Intuitionalism is now in the ascend- 
ency ; and the high glow of moral and philosophic feel- 
ing which it cherishes not only sincerely feels an affinity 
for, but even confounds itself with, a spiritual, earnest 
religion. Dr. Hedge speaks, then, with no purpose of 
shallow compliment, but with a profoundly serious 
meaning. Yet, with all its profoundness, it is a mere 
ephemeral phase of sentiment. It is simply the humor 
of the reigning metaphysics. Twenty years hence it may 



Methodism. 



259 



be blown off, like the foam from a German's mug of 
lager, and leave nothing but a residuum of dead sensa- 
tionalism worse than ruled the age of Paley and Kirk- 
land. Should we now allow ourselves to be cheated into 
the humor of renouncing the historical evidential basis 
of Christianity, what will become of us when the high 
fever glow of the present transcendentalism chills down 
into empiricism ? Both the historical and the spiritual 
would be lost, and nothing but a blank, desolate, Tom 
Paine infidelity would be left us. We must tell our Unita- 
rian and rationalistic friends, then, that we can no more 
accept their guidance in this their hour of excitement 
than we could in the day of their deadness. Method- 
ism maintained her revivalism in the day of their pro- 
saic Paleyism ; she now maintains her Paleyism in the 
midst of their revivalism. For if Paleyism be true, our 
revivalism is right. If the facts of Christianity are re- 
ality, the spirit of earnest religion is solely rational. 
Paley was right and logical when he framed his evi- 
dences ; he was illogical when he declined to infer the 
obligation and necessity of the most earnest religious 
feeling and action. Paley and Wesley are antecedent 
and consequent. 

We are not, then, to be fascinated out of that firm 
maintenance of Christian facts, for the masterly state- 
ment of which William Paley's name is illustriously 
trite wherever the English language is read. His man- 
ual has solidly based the faith of untold thousands. It 
will survive whole aeons of literary bubbles. With 
all our Methodism, we would not give one ounce of 
Paley's solid evidential sense for the entire volume of 
transcendental gas that exhilarates the brains of these 
glowing intuitionalists, who would kick the massy plat- 
form of fact from beneath their feet to show how 
buoyantly they can dance on nothing. 



260 Statements :' Theological and Critical. 



It was our fortune to read in close connection Theo- 
dore Parker's Experience and Dr. Stevens's historical 
portraiture of Wesley. We thereby^were led to bring 
into close comparison the Christian and the antichristian 
Reformer. We must say that in the presence of the 
great, serene, reverential founder of Methodism, our 
Absolute Religionist looks meager, limping, and bom- 
bastic*. Great pretenses does he make of originality 
and haughty rejection of the faith and theologies of 
past ages. And yet he miserably fails in comparative 
depth and power. How infinitely less searching is his 
discourse to disturb the guilty conscience with the dam- 
nation of sin and the terrors of God ! How feebly he 
arouses the scourge of remorse or the radical volition 
of repentance. What knows he of the rapture of par- 
don, of communion with God, and joy in the Holy 
Ghost ! All these deep, solemn, glorious feelings he 
ignores, and substitutes old Stoicism, with its marble 
moral will and its desperate reliance on self. Hence, 
never, never can he stir the moral depths of the pop- 
ular heart, and pour religious revival through the 
soul of the dying masses of men. No John Nelsons 
or George Storys spring up to his side. No Kings- 
wood collieries grow holy under his discourse. No 
helpers rise by hundreds to carry the glad evangel 
to the common people of all the land. No impatieilt 
missionaries burn to herald his frozen gospel to dis- 
tant isles and continents. From the far hemispheres 
and antipodes no echo comes, making the heavens 
above him glad with the shout of redeemed souls re- 
joicing in a gospel of peace. 

Bishop Spalding on Romanism and Methodism. 

The first three lectures [Lectures and Discourses) of 
this eminent Catholic prelate are devoted to a defense 



Methodism. 



261 



of our common Christianity against the assaults of mod- 
ern scientists and philosophers. So eloquently and ably 
is this done that, in our reading, the hearts of us two 
seemed to draw nearer together, and our own heart 
seemed to ask why should there be so fixedly a great 
gulf, a x^^ a fieya, between us. We have " one Lord, 
one faith [in Christ], one baptism." And yet this our 
Christian brother repudiates our communion, discards 
our worship, denies our human right to our own moral 
judgments, excludes us with horror from his conse- 
crated cemetery, and pronounces us a heretic who needs 
correction and straightening into orthodoxy, even, if 
necessary, by physical infliction, and force. Thus a 
o)(ia\ia and a ^dcr^a [ieya stand, as a moveless and 
mournful reality between us. 

The reason and responsibility for this schism open 
upon us the moment we commence the fourth lect- 
ure, describing "The Catholic Church." Dear to us, 
as a sweet music, is the very word Catholic, as inher- 
ited, not indeed from Christ, nor from his apostles, but 
from the creed of the early ages, by all true justified 
maintainers of the "one Lord, one faith, one bap- 
tism." In that threefold oneness is their unity; in 
that broad, universal comprehension is their Cathol- 
icity; under the divine Head of the Church are they 
recognized as salt of the earth and heirs of heaven. 
But, as with an inflexible cleaver, the learned prelate 
creates a direful schism. He takes a section of the 
holy body, cuts it out from the rest, and limits 
the name and attribute of Catholicity .to that section 
or " sect." Not only the younger sections, the Protes- 
tant, but sections older than the Roman, the Syriac, 
where Christ himself laid the foundations, the Greek, 
in whos3 language the New Testament speaks to us 
through all ages, both older than Rome, are excom- 



262 Statements: Theological and Critical. 



municated. All, save the communion of the bloody 
pagan capital, are 

" Shorn from the holy altar of the Church 
And offered up as sacred to perdition." 

All this is done under the claim that Peter, endowed 
with the successional kingship of Christ, established his 
throne at Rome; an assumption unknown to and con- 
tradicted by the New Testament documents, and unaf- 
firmed by any contemporary authority, and so utterly 
unhistorical and untrue. 

In a chapter on the Decline of Protestantism, the 
venerated prelate plausibly finds Congregationalism in 
a state of disintegration, and Episcopalianism a feeble, 
aristocratic minimum; but coming to Methodism, he 
acknowledges a " success " and a " preponderance." He 
honors us with several pages, in which, leaving out nu- 
merous depreciatory phrases, somewhat otiose in their 
character, we seem not seldom to discern that the relig- 
ious emotion of Dr. Spalding kindles with more sympa- 
thy than he is quite willing to reveal. How profoundly, 
in so discerning, do we deplore the barriers he is obliged 
to set up that prevent sympathy from enlarging into 
communion ! It is in this sympathy, in which we find 
traces of the inner oneness of all devout believers in 
Christ, which will be revealed when these temporal bars 
have vanished at the final revelation of the sons of God. 
If we are ever admitted to the vision of God, we expect 
to find myriads of Roman saints in that transcendent 
glory. They are mistakes which divide us; mistakes 
not guiltless, but mistakes that will be cleared up at 
the grand upclearing. Dr. Spalding recognizes the true 
Catholicism in Methodism in the following frank state- 
ment of the secret of her success: "The Methodist 
preachers appealed to sentiments which are part of our 



Methodism. 



263 



religious nature; and in this respect their sermons were 
but repetitions of truths which have been announced in 
the Church from the beginning. The necessity of sal- 
vation, the merits of the Passion and death of our Lord, 
the power of faith, the evil of sin, the need of repent- 
ance, the efficacy of prayer, God's mercy, and the joy 
of a holy life, are not subjects which Methodism, or any 
form of Protestantism, has [first] introduced into the 
Christian pulpit. But the Methodist exhorters urged 
these truths with a power and freshness which brought 
them home to those who were either ignorant of relig- 
ion or accustomed to hear from the pulpit only moral 
essays and sectarian controversy." 

And yet Dr. Spalding maintains that Methodism is 
contributing to the decline of Protestantism by reduc- 
ing religion to a mere feeling, to the neglect of doctrine 
and historic connection, that is, with the Roman papa- 
cy. But Methodism, however much she relies on emo- 
tion, and however much she has used moving machiner- 
ies, has not made such her predominant aim or reliance. 
Dr. Spalding's own statement shows on what a body of 
vital truths, the vital doctrines of Christianity, she has 
made her success depend. The mere emotion has never 
been her aim, but such a change of heart and life as re- 
news the man in Christ. Her avowed aim is not to dif- 
fuse shallow emotionalism, but to "spread scriptural 
holiness through the land." She aims to do this by 
vital truths, deep experiences, and efficient organisms, 
with, greatest specialty of all, Christ as our sole head 
and "center of unity." In holding that head and cen- 
ter, w T e are one with the Roman, the Greek, the An- 
glican, the Reformed, Churches, and with Bishop Spald- 
ing. But w T hen he or they attempt to insert a human 
head between us and the divine Head, we most prompt- 
ly reject all such interlopers. The learned prelate's ar- 



264 Statements: Theological and Critical. 



gument that a visible body should have a visible head 
is plausible but not convincing. The kingdom of nat- 
ure is a visible body without a visible head. The very 
universe is a visible body with a divine invisible Head. 

For the claim, set up by Dr. Spalding, and conceded 
by the Episcopalian Bishop Seymour, that Peter pos- 
sessed a " primacy" over the other apostles, is ques- 
tionable. Peter did possess a seniority of age, and 
hence might occasionally speak as spokesman for the 
rest. He possessed also an impulsive overforwardness 
which prompted him often to speak in a malapropos 
style which involved him in blunder and disaster. But, 
exceptionally we might say, once or twice, he spoke so 
pertinently for all that Jesus responded to him gra- 
ciously for all. But no words of Jesus to him con- 
ferred such direct personal power over " nations " and 
" kingdoms " as Jer. i, 10, confers upon Jeremiah. And 
yet the powers conferred on Jeremiah were not execu- 
tive, but simply declaratory, limited to the utterance of 
God's message to men, and they died with his person. 
There is nothing to show that Peter's powers were any 
more executive, or hereditary, or successional. 

Dr. Spalding quotes the favorite texts- in favor of 
Peter's popedom, and they are so strikingly inadequate 
that one wonders that he is not ashamed of the per- 
formance. They fail in many respects to affirm the 
claim; but we may specially note but three, namely: 
explicitness, universality, and successionality. They fail 
in explicitness, for surely it is preposterous to interpret 
such phrases as " confirm thy brethren," " feed my 
lambs," in behalf of a papal power. Any Congrega- 
tional pastor fulfills the entire meaning of these phrases 
in his daily duties to his flock. They fail in universal- 
ity, and to quote these words as conferring absolute 
power over all future Christendom is logical beggary. 



Methodism. 



265 



They fail in successionality, for not one word in the 
whole indicates that any such powers were to be trans- 
mitted to apostolic successors, any more than the com- 
mission to Jeremiah declared a prophetic transmission. 
And then to bolster up this weakness with the unhis- 
torical "see of Peter" at Rome, is a pretension just 
on the level of the forged Decretals. 

Methodism and the New Theology. 

The purpose of JDorner on the Future State, which is 
simply a translation of the section of his System of 
Christian Doctrine, comprising the Doctrine of the Last 
Things, with an Introduction and Notes by Newman 
Smyth, seems to be to bring the high authority of Dor- 
ner before us to justify the speculation of & post-mortem 
probation. In directing attention to this peculiarity of 
his Eschatology, we at the same time particularly 
note that he relieves the notion from its worst aspect 
by applying it only, or mainly, to those beyond the 
reach of the Gospel message. So held, not as a dog- 
ma to be imposed on the Church, but as a hypothesis 
relieving to the mind of the individual, the notion 
need create no great commotion. Similarly, the per- 
sonal suggestion of Rev. Joseph Cook, that there may 
be cases of eminently conscientious men whose souls 
are quickened into a living faith at the moment of 
transition from time to eternity, may be a conception 
that one might adopt as a relieving hope. There are 
eminently conscience-governed men outside the Church 
whose rectitude of life often shames the members of 
the Church, skeptics, it may be, yet comparatively ruled 
by right, upon whom it seems difficult to pronounce 
the doom of eternal misery. What shall we say to or 
of such men ? The great doctor of the Roman Church, 
Thomas Aquinas, would say: Heaven is the vision of 



266 Statements : Theological and Critical. 



God to which the pure in heart through Christ are 
alone admitted ; while outside the divine vision are 
varied regions of happiness, which is not blessedness, 
where the virtuous not holy abide. And all outside 
the visional heaven is hell. The holy live in the eter- 
nal golden sunshine of glory; the virtuous in the silver 
moonshine of intellectual enjoyment. Personally, we 
would not peremptorily condemn Mr. Cook's hypothesis 
as a mental relief to those who need it. We cannot, 
however, elevate the conception to a dogma, nor write 
it an article in a structural theology. Whichever way 
private speculation may verge, we should say to the 
virtuous not holy man, Your position is, nevertheless, 
precarious and dangerous ; " give heed to make your 
calling and election sure" Leave not the eternal bless- 
edness to a contingency. 

We cannot fully admire the finesses of Mr. Smyth 
in this and previous volumes. His curvelinear peri- 
ods about the "New England theology," as if New 
England had but one theology, and as if a narrow local 
name for a theology were a recommendation instead 
of a disparagement, we do not intensely admire. And 
to cover over his emergence from the past Calvinism 
of New England under such terms as " the New Ortho- 
doxy," " the New Calvinism," " the New Theology," 
seems to us a very superficial showinesss. He seems 
like a fresh spring butterfly who imagines that such 
an epoch as his emergence into existence is to make 
all things "new." It took long centuries and aeons for 
creation to arrive at his advent. Now, we say that 
truth is old. As Dr. Nevins once said, " Old Calvin- 
ism is none the worse for being old." If oldness were 
Calvinism's only unfortunate point, that point it shares 
with geometry and with God. The new geometric 
truth, discovered not invented, never invalidates the 



Methodism. 



267 



old. We are, and are proud to be, traditionalist. Next 
to the Bible and conscience we believe in the Church. 
We study the dogmas of the thinkers of past centuries, 
and especially the nearest to Christ. With Wesley we 
love to recur to the "Scriptures and the primitive 
Church." 

But Mr. Smyth now brings out the giant Dorner upon 
us to crush opposition like an avalanche. Awful ! But 
we have heretofore intimated that we are to be num- 
bered among the admirers, but not the worshipers or 
followers, of Dorner. In his History of Protestant The- 
ology, for instance, Dorner gives a definition of Armini- 
anism which, Arminian through our life long as we had 
supposed ourselves to be, defined an Arminianism we 
never heard of, and never dreamed, and do not under- 
stand. We do suppose the gross caricature had: a pur- 
pose. And Dorner is often muddy. We cannot, in- 
deed, quite characterize him as Robert Hall did the 
great Calvinistic doctor, John Owen: " A continent of 
mud, sir; a continent of mud !" At any rate, we should 
make reserve that the muddy continent has many a 
placer of golden ore; and the mud may be quite worth 
restoi'ing for the sake of the golden finds. But as au- 
thority Dorner decides nothing for us. 

But while we do not admire the finesses of Mr. Smyth, 
we do confess a reverence for the high-souled frankness 
of Professor Park, in boldly attributing to Wesleyan 
Arminianism a central prominence at the present hour 
in the maintenance of Protestant orthodoxy. It is a 
high compliment from a high authority. Methodists 
entertain thereat no puerile feeling of triumph, but do 
cherish a veneration for the magnanimity that makes 
such a statement. It portends no ecclesiastical unions 
of organizations; but it heralds a harmony of inward 
feelings among the organizations. For fifty years past 



268 Statements: Theological and Ceitical. 



it has appeared to us that our Methodism stood very 
much in the way of the New England reformers from 
Calvinism. We had preoccupied the ground of a lib- 
eral evangelical theology; and their problem, a very 
difficult one, and also a very unnecessary one, was how 
to liberalize without coinciding with us. Moses Stuart, 
in a bold, true, historic spirit, revealed to astonished 
Calvinistic New England that Arminianism, true Ar- 
minianism, the Arminianism of Arminius himself, was 
not the ragged effigy which their pulpits had been be- 
thumping for a century or two, but was evangelical 
and marked with the characteristics of truth. In the 
same style Professor Park has made a still further frank 
advance. But in the general, the impolicy of the late 
Dr. Fitch, of New Haven, and of Newman Smyth, has 
been followed; namely, to smuggle themselves into Ar- 
minianism, and call it "a different statement of the 
same doctrine," " a statement of Calvinism which is so 
made that Arminians are obliged to accept it;" or a 
"New Orthodoxy," "a New Calvinism," and finally, in 
Mr. Smyth's present brochure, " a New Theology." In 
all these flexible metamorphoses one curiosity is the ab- 
surd tenacity with which they stick to the term " Cal- 
vinism." If they are unhappily born heirs to a theol- 
ogy Avhich the nineteenth century of Christendom will 
not stand, no man in history is more flagrantly respon- 
sible for this, their fate, than John Calvin. Neverthe- 
less, they writhe to get out of his fetters and yet to 
retain his label. Great were the powers and energies 
of John Calvin; great his services to the Protestant 
Reformation; yet his great and ghastly failure was as a 
constructive theologian ; and, curiously enough, it is 
in just this sphere that they struggle to retain his 
name ! 

As to the heathen problem, to solve which the theory 



Methodism. 



269 



of post-mortem probation is suggested, it lias been fully 
considered and fairly solved in the Arminian theology. 
Curcellseus in his able treatise, De necessitate cognitionis 
Christi ad sahctem, unfolded the true view, followed, 
or at least coincided with, by Wesley in his commen- 
tary, and Fletcher of Madeley in his polemic tractates. 
Of that solution we have given a tolerably full state- 
ment in our chapter on the Equation of Probational 
Advantages, pp. 343-360 of our volume on The Will 
So satisfactory to our Methodism herself from the be- 
ginning has been that solution, that we have had no 
temptation to the post-mortem theory in the past, and 
none but a very few eccentric and local thinkers in the 
present have tended toward that notion — thinkers, espe- 
cially about Boston, who have apparently absorbed it 
into their organisms from the surrounding Congrega- 
tional atmosphere. 

The Methodist Idea of Human Probation, 

We might well call attention to Dr. Prentiss's disser- 
tation, in the Presbyterian Bevieic, on Pkobatiox. It 
is, he says, a modern word. He finds it earliest in 
" that able work," Dr. Daniel Whitby's treatise on the 
Fine Po>nts. A little more than a quarter of a century 
later, Bishop " Butler employs it as a key to the moral 
government of God in the world." But Dr. Prentiss 
maintains that the idea of probation belongs to natural 
religion, and not to the Bible. To the elect, whose sal- 
vation is eternally secured, he tells us there is no proba- 
tion, no conditional trial, but only a "training" to a 
fixed result. To the reprobate, whose wills are fore- 
ordainedly and administratively secured to final impen- 
itence, there is no opportunity, no trial, no chance, no 
hope ! They are damned before born, without a pos- 
sibility of escape ! Of course, for both classes, and 



270 Statements : Theological and Critical. 



equally, there is no probation. We need not say how 
thorny would be the pew-cushion of most Methodists in 
listening to such a Gospel ! There is no chance of 
damnation for the pre-eternally elect ; there is no chance 
of salvation for the pre-eternally fore-ordained repro- 
bate. This reprobate's will is sealed to unrepentant 
sin. And thus, with all the doctor's irenics, no doubt 
perfectly sincere, we have the old fatalistic story. It is 
just as Wesley concisely expressed it: "The elect will 
be saved, do what they will ; the reprobate will be 
damned, do what they can." To a Methodist, proba- 
tion — not the word, but the thing — forms the very soul 
of the whole Bible. It begins with Adam, and ends 
with the closing eschatology of the Apocalypse. Obey 
and be saved, disobey aud be damned, is the entire bib- 
lical strain. With Adam it was the obedience of works; 
under Christ it is " the obedience of faith." To unfold 
those alternatives before the perceptions of men, and 
before " the autonomy " of their free, unnecessitated, 
undecreed will, is the work, purpose, and life of the 
Law and the Gospel. And this difference between the 
two Churches is not merely metaphysical. It makes 
two different Bibles. And so when our Methodist fa- 
thers came to America their success was not due, as 
some say, to "their preaching the doctrines common to 
all evangelical Churches." They every-where found it 
necessary to sweep away predestinarianism in order to 
make way for the offer of a free salvation. Before that 
sweep predestinarianism is fading and almost ready to 
vanish away. More and more the public mind revolts 
from a fatalistic gospel. And it is only by the banish- 
ment of that dark dogma that a free Gospel can over- 
spread the earth. 

How that dogma can be retained in the minds and 
hearts of great, good, and humane men, as most surely 



Methodism. 



271 



it is, is to us the most insoluble of psychological prob- 
lems. And here is the only way we know to our Ireni- 
cum. We drop doctrinal differences, and we can unite 
with Presbyterians in every good word and work. 
Who doubts the profound piety in the great Presby- 
terian body ? Who does not rejoice in their stalwart 
efforts to benefit the world ? Who does not recognize 
in that Church a great bulwark of Christianity — a bul- 
wark alike against wickedness, against infidelity, and 
against the man of sin ? Who does not admire the abih 
ity, the piety, and the scholarship of the Presbyterian 
ministry ? — a scholarship most richly exhibited in this 
Prtsbylerian Revieic, to the perusal of which we heartily 
commend every scholarly Methodist. 

Witness of the Spirit. 

If Luther is held to have said truly that the doctrine 
of justification by faith is the testing article of a stand- 
ing or falling Church, perhaps it is equally true that the 
retention in its full force of both the doctrine and the 
practical experience of the Witness of the Spirit is the 
test of a standing or falling Methodism. Before the 
definite individualism which this test requires both in 
the first assurance of conversion and in the continuity of 
Christian life, priestly intervention disappears, ritualism 
and formalism lose all luster, and religion is ever re- 
duced to a personal home-coming matter of the heart 
and life. And while that is the case, how can a Church 
fail of retaining vitality, power, and aggression ? 

And this test, too, is a great conservator of an evan- 
gelical orthodoxy of creed. It pre-assumes all the 
great truths of evangelicism in all their power and 
freshness. It demands the Father, Son, and Holy 
Ghost in all their divinity and oneness. It demands 
the blood of the atonement in its full and saving power. 



272 Statements: Theological and Cuitical. 



It has no fellowship with a self-sufficient rationalism. 
It feels and knows the inspiration of the divine word ; 
it finds so rich an aliment in the gospels, it is conscious 
of so divine a sympathy with the deepest utterances of 
the Pauline epistles, that it fastens itself with a firm- 
ness to the New Testament that no modern pseudo-crit- 
icism can disturb. How, then, can the Church, with this 
ark of the. covenant unmoved from its central sanctuary, 
fail of life and victory ? And just here it is that we 
find our ground of trust, that, amid the darkness and 
storm of the coming age of infidel power and onslaught, 
Methodism will not only stand her ground, but win the 
triumph for the truth and Christ. With the witness in 
her heart there can be no faithlessness, no heresy, no cow- 
ardice, no shrinking from the fight, no yielding of a sin- 
gle post, but onward, right onward, must be the word 
till a dying world is saved. 

Upon a sermon preached by Dr. E. P. Humphrey, be- 
fore the Old School Presbyterian Assembly, the New 
Miglander remarks : "Dr. Humphrey thus accounts for 
the growth of Methodism : ' It might be clearly shown, 
as I humbly conceive, that its past success is to be re- 
ferred, not to those doctrines which nre peculiar to itself, 
but to those which' are common to both theologies.' 
Perhaps the Wesleyan would reply that the success of 
Dr. Humphrey's system is due likewise, not to its pe- 
culiarities, but to the elements which it has in common 
with other systems. But will Dr. Humphrey deny that 
one of the chief causes of the spread of Methodism, is 
the antagonism of its preachers to a notion of predesti- 
nation, which served in the popular mind to cist doubt 
on the sincerity of God in the Gospel invitations? Is 
not their success very much due to the emphasis with 
which they have insisted on the truth of God's unwill- 
ingness that any should perish — on the truth that none 



Methodism. 



273 



who will seek God are cut off from the hope of salva- 
tion, and that all may seek him — nay, that all are com- 
manded and entreated to do so ? The vitality of Meth- 
odism sprung from its assertion of these truths of the 
Gospel. So far, its power is the power of the Gospel. 
It has erred in denying what it could not set in har- 
mony with them. But what shall be said of the creed 
which says nothing of the love and grace of God, and 
his desire for the salvation of impenitent men — like the 
creed on page seven of the sermon before us? What 
shall be said of the preaching which leaves the impres- 
sion that the Gospel affords no opportunity, except to a 
small portion of those addressed ? Of such preaching, 
this at least may be said, that it is responsible for the 
astonishing progress of Methodism, and for whatever is 
one-sided in Methodist theology." 

It would, indeed, be a problem for Dr. Humphrey to 
show how, if Methodist success arose from " doctrines 
held in common with other denominations," she has, 
during her brief life, outrun them all ! How should 
the same amount of cause produce double or treble the 
amount of effect ? But Methodists know full w T ell, that 
while the doctrine of justification by faith (of which 
Calvinists have so often denied us the possession) is the 
common life-spring by which all evangelical denomi- 
nations run, the sources of all our own extra freshness 
of feeling and vigor of action are not o?ie, but nearly all 
the points in which we differ from Calvinism. A Meth- 
odist preacher w T ould, indeed, feel his mouth shut up by 
the dogma, that every sin and every impenitence was 
predetermined by God ; and that more than half, per- 
haps all his hearers w T ere damned not only before he 
began his sermon, but before they were born. What 
expansion to a preacher's soul, to preach a free salva- 
tion offered by a sincere God, purchased by a universal 
18 



274: Statements: Theological and Critical. 



atonement, unlimited by any secret exclusive decree, 
unobserved by any volitional necessity of rejection — 
that is, disenthralled of all the hampers of Calvinism, 
moderate or immoderate ! What a constant warning to 
the Christian's persevering life, to know that apostasy 
is a real possibility, verified by many an actual exam- 
ple ; not a safe impossibility, as old Calvinism saith ; 
nor a shadowy possibility that never can happen, as young 
Calvinism subtilly splits it. And then, while both Cal- 
vinisms dread the doctrine of Assurance, knowing that, 
joined to the doctrine of infallible Perseverance, it pro- 
duces a bold presumption of not only present, but eternal 
salvation, Methodism teaches us the duty and the joy 
of knowing a present salvation ; and knowing it each 
hour of life just for that hour ! And, inasmuch as Cal- 
vinism must affirm of every apostate, however bright 
his evidence of conversion for long years, that he never 
had any grace, it thereby destroys to the soul all cer- 
tainty of evidence until probation is closed, making the 
Christian life a path of mist. And as the completed 
perseverance is the only sure test of reality, the Calvin- 
ist lives not in a state of cherished and joyous faith, but 
in a position of perpetually cultivated doubt ; a state of 
permanent, querying self-diagnosis, which can never be 
verified by present phenomena, but only by final result, 
by which he becomes like a dyspeptic studying his 
own stomach ; not like a racer taking his health for 
granted, and running because he is vigorous, and vigor- 
ous because he runs. And then, to know that mighty 
is the fullness of the Spirit, whereby we may be here on 
earth made triumphant over the temptations that assail 
us, and sanctified from the sins that would beset us, not 
as a metaphysical possibility never realized, but as a 
fact of multiplied experience — what a stimulant to ear- 
nestness of prayer, and to struggling after real, livable 



Methodism. 



275 



holiness ! Thus, wherein we differ from Calvinism, 
therein it is we are fresh, happy, and strong. An entire 
different religious temperament is created. All the dif- 
ference is realized between Puritanism and Methodism. 
And a freer, more flexible activity is formed ; a variety, 
that dissipates the monotonous, and breaks up the me- 
chanical. And we must tell our New Haven friends that, 
while the above paragraph indicates, what we have often 
thought, that their divinity was framed to forestall 
Methodism without becoming identical with it, we are 
deeply certain that they have but little mended the old 
divinity of Calvinism. Their umbratile distinctions, 
by which they would attain the advantages of Wes- 
leyan Arminianism, without plagiarizing its principles, 
are metaphysical chef -cVceuv res but practical failures. 
There remain the contradictions, the exclusions, the un- 
broken fatalities of Calvinism in the creed. There 
remain the acridness of Puritanism in the spirit, its 
angularity in the form, its mechanicalness in the activ- 
ity. Indeed, we have often felt in worshiping with our 
devout but monotonous Calvinistic friends, as if their 
and our whole performance were a solemn panoramic 
movement, of which we were a fated part; and in no 
instance has this sensation been felt more vividly than 
under the ministration of some of the chief doctors of 
New-Haven theology themselves. And we join their 
Old School brethren in fearing that they are in a doubt- 
ful transition state; standing on unmaintainable ground; 
and liable to wake up, next generation, Pelagian. We 
Methodists know our firm position. We are march- 
ing to our second centennial, without a nail of the old 
Wesleyan platform changed, sprung, or rusty. But of 
New-School Calvinism we stand in doubt what will be 
its future status, or, mayhap, its terminus. 

The Christian Examiner furnishes us with the fol- 



276 Statements: Theological and Ceitical. 

lowing surprising information in regard to the Meth- 
odist view of the doctrine of Assurance : " The Meth- 
odists ignore it, or, rather, are completely ignorant of 
it ; although, like Spurgeon, they practically adopt it 
in revival preaching, thereby making unconscious self- 
sufheient Christian converts." 

For reckless assertion like this, the plea of ignorance 
might be allowed, were not the author so self-compla- 
cent in his style, and were not the knowledge so abun- 
dantly within his reach. If, rising from his study, he 
had walked into the streets, and put to the first plain, 
earnest Methodist he met, the question : Do your peo- 
ple hold that a man may and should know his sins for- 
given ? the prompt and clear-eyed affirmative he would 
have received would have convinced him that his 
informant well understood both the question and the 
true answer. Would the said writer next go to a 
place where he might learn many things he sadly needs 
to know, namely, to a Methodist prayer-meeting, and 
put, not to the pastor, but to the people there, the same 
question, he would receive an answer so unanimous and 
so hearty, as would show him that the doctrine was not 
confined to a period of special "revival preaching." 
Would he then condescend to look into a Methodist 
Hymn Book, more copies of which are probably scat- 
tered through his own single State of Massachusetts 
than of any Socinian volume of Psalmody through the 
whole world, he would find a department of some thir- 
teen pages, headed at each page with crowning capitals, 
" Adoption and Assurance ; " upon which pages the 
hymns would contain stanzas like the following : 

" His Spirit which he gave 

Now dwells in us, we know; 
The witness in ourselves we have, 

And all its fruits we show." 



Methodism. 



277 



If then he would proceed to open Wesley's Sermons, 
more copies of which have been doubtless circulated 
throughout our laud during the last thirty years than 
of auy other three divines extant, he will find no less 
than three sermons on the " Witness of the Spirit " as 
an assurance of our salvation to our own spirits. If, 
finally, he will open that widely-circulated body of di- 
vinity, Watson's Institutes, he will find the doctrine 
clearly discriminated and ably elaborated. 

And now, having put this peremptory gentleman 
through this course of study, we benevolently offer him 
this parting piece of caution. Whenever you attempt 
to make sweeping imputations of ignorance upon your 
neighbors, be sure you are not yourself the ignoramus. 

Yet one word more. This writer, on the authority 
of Sir William Hamilton, affirms that the doctrine of 
Assurance was the " salient point " of the Reformation, 
and that the orthodox Protestants have abandoned their 
own ground, and coincided with the Romanists on this 
point. If he will turn to the eighteenth number of the 
.British and Foreign Evangelical Review, he will find 
Sir William Hamilton somewhat refuted on that point, 
and will, perhaps, conclude that he is himself as much 
mistaken in his second-hand erudition as in his first- 
hand imputations. 

The Class System. 

The Methodist class-leaders form one of the most 
unique and may be one of the most efficient vitalizing 
agencies in the universal Church. There is nothing 
like it, at least in Protestantism. A large and a pow- 
erful class of .laymen, giving their gratuitous labor to 
the spiritual interests of the entire membership, quick- 
ening others and thereby quickening their own spiritual 
life, contributes in an incalculable degree to the vitality 



278 Statements : Theological and Ceitical. 



of the Church. Thereby is created a body of secular 
men who are diffused through the community, laden 
with responsibilities and vitalized by their duties, and 
possessed of a practical alertness for religious action 
and influence. These serve as a collective pastorate, 
permanent amid the changes of the itinerancy, enabling 
each new minister to be the essential continuation of 
his predecessor. As permanent watchmen they become 
the police of the Church ; carrying the influence of its 
religious government to the individual, serving to ascer- 
tain the actual membership and worthiness of member- 
ship of each. And, finally, they are the ready confess- 
ors, counselors, and comforters of those who need their 
aid. All these points arc, at least ideally, in the oflice, 
and we believe they have been realized to a marvelous 
extent ; this body being a scarce appreciated factor 
when we endeavor to account for our own successful 
history. 

The subject of class-meetings seems, at the present 
time, to awaken a special attention in the Church. So 
long as our itinerancy endures, the class is a counter- 
part necessary to the effective discipline of the Church. 
We think the right of the Church authoritatively to 
require the attendance of her laity upon these means 
is just as unquestionable as her right to require her 
ministry to itinerate. We may be safe in saying that 
that will ever be a well-ordered Church where the class 
efficiently performs its disciplinary functions. Very 
strongly do we reprobate any effort to remove the abso- 
luteness of the condition to membership of the perform- 
ance of this duty ; for the refusal of class attendance is 
a withdrawal of the most elementary support from the 
institutions of the Church. 

But as fashions change, and as law has ceased to sus- 
tain the stringency of the oflice, the question arises 



Methodism. 



279 



whether the efficiency cannot still be retained, and this 
powerful body be improved and largely utilized for the 
future. May it not be called into greater self-conscious- 
ness; an esprit du corps be created; a new enthusiasm 
be aroused ; a mutual sociability be awakened ; a higher 
qualification be called into the service, and a larger 
result of religious profit be gathered ? The class-lead- 
ers' conventions which are occasionally held cannot fail 
to be of profit. It has occurred to our own thought 
that a periodical Class-Leader should be regularly pub- 
lished, filled with matter to organize, instruct, and stim- 
ulate these under-pastors of our Church. Our Sunday- 
school teachers have their Journal. We might, at least, 
start a semi-monthly sheet, and our own opinion is that 
an enlargement would soon be demanded. Both lead- 
ers and members could be furnished with a pabulum 
which would not only supply nourishment, but create 
an appetite for more. 

Methodism and the College. 

Conversing a few months since with Rev. Mr. Bird, 
for many years AVesleyan missionary in Hayti, and 
author of a volume entitled The Black Man in Hayti, 
we were informed by him that many of the sons of 
the wealthier Haytians are sent to Paris for their edu- 
cation, and very uniformly return confirmed, and often 
boastful, Atheists. Deeply wrong, as it truly is, that 
the education of the young in Austria should be placed 
by law in Jesuitical hands, it is very possibly true that 
the sad alternative, to a large degree, lies between the 
Jesuit and the infidel professor. The student masses, in 
some parts of Europe, to a large and increasing amount, 
are, under existing influences, blatant, mob-like de- 
nouncers of God. So fearfully is this the fact that the 
London Spectator, a few years ago, predicted that the 



280 Statements : Theological and Critical. 



closing century would be a period of the blackest un- 
belief ever known to European history. 

And there seems to be in this country, in process of 
inauguration, a scheme for producing in our own col- 
leges a correspondently irreligious condition. Rational- 
ists and infidels have seldom built colleges. They find 
it more cheap to steal than manufacture. With how 
pious a purpose Harvard was founded, and how terribly 
it does not fulfill that purpose, is generally known. 
The Nation, not long since, took the ground that min- 
isters are unfit to be educators. The assigned reason 
was, that theirs is that effeminate morality, unsuited to 
secular life, which prompts the coupling, so often ex- 
pressed, of " ministers and women." In other words, 
Christian morality ought to be excluded from our col- 
leges. And, of course, a fortiori, ministers are still less 
fit guides for the adult ; and so are fit, ministerially, for 
nothing but non-existence. 

It is not " secular colleges " (like the Michigan Uni- 
versity and Cornell College) to which we object. It is 
not, however, to the secidarity of any college, but to 
the antichrist icmity seeking (vainly, we trust, in regard 
to the former) to get possession of them. Secular col- 
leges, in the sense of non-denominational, where the 
various sections of Christianity unite, pervaded by a 
common religion, are to us matters of warm interest. 
Such a one we have had in past times at Ann Arbor, 
and, in spite of some spots of ill omen, we shall in future 
have. But when the so-called " secular colleges" become 
strongholds of irreligion, we shall assert and use our 
right to do two things. We shall utter a very dis- 
tinct pronunciation of the fact; and we shall withhold 
our children from the teachings of its professors. 

Not only does not irreligion build colleges, but, in all 
ages, such has been the affinity of mental development 



Methodism. 



281 



with religion, that piety has been the founder and the 
priest has been the educator. The cause lies in the 
fact that true intellectual culture and religion are alike 
an aspiration and an ascent of man's higher faculties 
toward the Divine. It was religious faith, not unfaith, 
that founded the universities of Continental Europe in 
the Middle Ages, and of Cambridge and Oxford in 
England. In America, Harvard and Yale were estab- 
lished by the earnest efforts of Christian ministers and 
laymen, whose first anxieties were to secure thereby 
a godly ministry, and a cultured intellectual aristocracy, 
for New England's future. One of the first cares of the 
first founders of Methodism in America was to found 
Cokesbury College. When that was twice burnt down, 
humbled Methodism, despised by the collegiate caste of 
the day, grew discouraged, and, in her less-informed 
ranks, opposed to the highest educational institutes. 
When the era for their establishment came, our people 
were largely distrustful lest colleges should become the 
enemies of a true and simple piety. And what was it 
that dissipated that distrust and created a unanimity in 
our Church in behalf of academies and colleges? It 
was, as we well recollect, personally, the sweeping reviv- 
als that took place within their walls. The Methodist 
opposer of lofty u book learning " was utterly disinte- 
grated when he found that the seminary was the place 
to get his ungodly children converted. A true Christian 
university, under the patronage and tuition of highly 
cultured Christian men, forming a little model Christian 
republic, self -governed through the power of Christian 
influence, where our sons and daughters are trained to 
the highest style of Christian manhood and woman- 
hood, has become with Methodism a controlling ideal. 
It has become a part of her programme of molding the 
world to that same ideal. Of that other sort of univer- 



282 Statements : Theological and Critical. 



sity, which this movement is laboring, unconsciously 
perhaps, to introduce, where the infidel sneer curls the 
savant's lips, and the blatant blasphemy is the pupil's 
response ; where the revival is a jest and prayer is 
unheard ; where the Sabbath is a carouse, and the only 
Church is a club of Atheism ; where the soul is materi- 
alized, and a brutifying science debases its followers 
into a practical bestiality, her abhorrence is profound, 
and, we trust in God, will never diminish. 

Methodism and Revivals. 

The late Dr. Neander became interested in the sub- 
ject of American revivals, by reading a work of Dr. 
Sprague's; and he put the task of giving a delineation 
of them in the German language, into the hands of his 
pupil Uhden. Upon surveying the subject, Uhden fan- 
cied that, in order to a full development of their nature, 
there was necessity for tracing the ecclesiastical history 
of New England, from the peculiarities of which he 
imagined that American revivals sprung. This neces- 
sity was fictitious; for the ground upon which it was 
based, namely, the derivation of American revivals from 
Puritan institutes, is false; and Uhden's conceptions of 
their ground arose from his unacquaintance with the 
true history of revivals, and the narrow source whence 
Neander drew his little knowledge of the subject. 
American revivals no more sprung from Puritan insti- 
tutes than the Atlantic Ocean sprung from the Hudson 
River. The "Puritan Fathers" came from Old En- 
gland, an entire body of earnest Christians; and what 
more natural or more beautiful than the expectation 
that in these rough wilds they might hope to be unmo- 
lested in their purity, and here set up a millennial com- 
munity, in w T hich all should share in public rule, and all 
be truly and experimentally Christian ? The Church 



Methodism. 



283 



was the State, and every one was to obey the laws of 
God and be holy. Thence Uhden is pleased to style 
the government a theocracy. And it is no fault of the 
theocracy that it does not stand until this day. The 
fault lay in the divergent opinions of good men who do 
not so accord, in our present imperfect conditions, as to 
make due harmony possible; in the incoming of foreign 
elements, which cannot be expelled without provoking 
reaction and overthrow; and in the degeneracy of later 
generations, to whom the strait-laced institutes of their 
fathers are a tedium. The first of these causes appeared 
in the dissent and repulsion of Roger Williams and his 
followers. The second appeared in the inroads of the 
Quakers, who just then seemed instigated by some spirit 
with a marvelous obstinacy to infest their community. 
The- " Puritan Fathers " only sought the removal of the 
Quakers, and felt themselves justified in inflicting the ex- 
tremest punishment for their contumacious return. But 
so persistent were the intruders in their disobedience, 
that the government began to see no end of bloodshed. 
The Fathers woke up on a somber New England morn- 
ing, and found themselves — persecutors ! To their honor, 
in due time, upon this discovery, they withheld their 
hand; and the arrival of the royal mandate, arresting 
further execution, found it already voluntarily stayed. 
But the third cause, posterior degeneration, assumed a 
variety of forms, unnerving the tone of religion and 
morality, and producing indifference, skepticism, and 
immorality. Against these causes of decay were inter- 
posed, as obstacles, organic efforts of reform, producing 
public movements and theological platforms that but 
feebly stayed the downward progress. The other ob- 
stacle interposed was the Northampton revival, under 
the ministry of Edwards, which was local inits charac- 
ter, and perfectly powerless as an opposition to preva- 



2^4 Statements : Theological and Ckltccal. 



lent degeneracy. With a slight exception, American 
revivals were wholly a foreign element, superinduced 
upon Puritanism contrary to its genius, and opposed by 
its authorities and institutes, but nevertheless ultimate- 
ly accepted from a foreign source by the hearts of the 
people. 

It was the " great movement of the eighteenth cent- 
ury, called Methodism," that gave Xew England, as 
well as America, her revivals. Methodism gave them 
to Xew England, in the first place, by the ministry of 
Whiterield, shortly after the Northampton excitement, 
by which she was opportunely made possible, and par- 
tially acceptable: but so ungenial was Xew England to 
revivals that when Whiten" eld made his second visit he 
was repudiated by Xew England, and his ministry 
proved a failure. Whitefield's visitation southward 
wanned the hearts of the people, and prepared the way 
for the second great advent of Methodism, of which we 
may give the following account: 

It is to Francis Asbury. " The Pioneer Bishop,"' the 
founder bishop of American Methodism, and to the 
itinerancy under his charge, more than all other human 
sources together, that America truly owes her revivals. 
With less, indeed, of trained acquirement than Wes- 
ley, yet with all the same natural power to command, 
and ability to found, and with all the same natural 
spring, and holy, world-embracing impulse, he is let 
loose upon a broad continent, over which, in its rude, 
half-developed state, he sweeps with a true Xapoleonic 
rapidity, and, in a far better cause, with a true Xapo- 
leonic success. <; Thunder and rain, awful mountains, 
deep rivers, and swollen streams/' in his own bold lan- 
guage, were obstacles with which he was familiar. Rul- 
ing first by Mr. Wesley's choice, next by a free and 
unanimous election, and thence through his whole life 



Methodism. 



285 



with the most earnest and almost uninterrupted una- 
nimity of the whole Church, and with an unrivaled pre- 
eminency for forty round years, under his administra- 
tion the little flock, commencing at John Street, spread 
its swarming myriads, and drew their Conference lines 
amid joyous labors and glorious revivals, covering the 
civilized continent, and, in less than half a century, out- 
numbering the largest denominations that had been for 
two centuries in the land. There is nothing surpassing 
it in the history of the Church. To talk of American 
revivals taking their origin from New England Puritan- 
ism, forsooth, is reduced to a folly and a laughter from 
these facts alone. 

The great revivals in Virginia in the time of Jarratt 
and the greater revivals in Kentucky were converting 
their thousands, while New England Puritanism was 
spiritually torpid. When Methodism with her revivals 
invaded New England, she found a general opposition 
not merely to her theology or her forms, but to her re- 
vivals as such. The very spirit and make of the New 
England churches were uncongenial. The narrow the- 
ology, the frigid temperament, the fixed organisms, the 
traditional prejudices, the drea<l of "excitement" and 
"animal feeling," were adamantinely set against them. 
Yet there was an element of genuine piety in Puritan- 
ism, to which a warmer glow of religious feeling had 
an affinity. In the very contest against revivals and 
Methodism pious hearts would take the holy contagion, 
and then whole churches had to work for revivals in 
self-defense. As years have passed on New England 
lias relaxed her fatalistic theology, surrendered her rig- 
id forms, and accepted the great revival element. But 
let her not outrage history with the scandalous pretense 
that these great movements flowed from her as an effect 
from inherent causes. We grant her all due credit 



286 Statements: Theological and Critical. 



when we say, that New England is about as much the 
source of American revivals as the Hudson River is the 
source of the Atlantic Ocean. 

Emotion in Religion. 

We love a piety blending holy emotion with intellect. 
We know the rich power of spiritual joy. We thank 
God for the religion which has in all ages made men 
weep and shout, and has even resulted, through human 
infirmity, in jerks and catalepsies; but we desire no ef- 
fort to promote the weeping, shouting, jerking, and cat- 
alepsy as a distinct institution. We love in our home 
the gladness and buoyancy which make our children 
noisy and riotous; but it is no disparagement to our 
parental love that when the noise and the riot become 
special objects, or assume indecorous forms, we take 
measures to abate the domestic nuisance. And special- 
ly when the noise is cherished by them as in itself a 
source of pleasure, arousing the nerves by its concus- 
sions, and exciting the animal by its negation of re- 
straint, it is an act and a duty of parental kindness not 
only to suppress the demonstration, but to correct the 
taste that enjoys it. With just the same view, as a 
pastor, we love in the Church the rich devotion which 
prompts to earnest manifestation: but, as we think, 
" nature itself teaches " that such manifestation is rath- 
er to be an irrepressible accident than an object; that 
it is never to be made an aim; that, when unchecked, it 
is very liable to assume unseemly forms and extrava- 
gant lengths, and that its encouragement is very apt 
to produce a sensuous love of the nervous excitement, 
and to engender a very unintelligent style of piety. 

To a certain extent it is true that extravagant exter- 
nal demonstration of emotion is the characteristic of a 
rude age, society, or class. The very essence of savage- 



Methodism. 



287 



ism, indeed, consists in wreaking its malign emotions in 
cruel action upon its victims. The half -civilized man 
gives free vent to his impulses in unmodified, unchast- 
ened laughter, crying, shouting, howling, leaping, and 
dancing. The Old Testament presents specimens of 
this in fact and in language which are not to be quoted 
as models for action, or literal requirements for obedi- 
ence. The rams' horns of Jericho would not justify a 
religious charivari, nor the dance of David authorize a 
holy cotillion. As society advances, decorum chastens 
our exhibitions of emotion; and the cultivation of the 
intellect, and the refinement of the taste, while in fact 
they deepen our better feelings, soften their expression. 
The Old Testament mother wept and howled, and even 
hired salaried howlers to express her extravagant grief. 
But her affections were less pure, less deep, than those 
of yonder Christian mother, who hides the face suffused 
with silent tears. The expression of religious emotion 
obeys the same laws ; and he who wishes to cultivate 
extravagant religious demonstration in itself, as an ob- 
ject simply, desires to send us back to a rude antiquity. 
He cherishes a forced and false enthusiasm ; and when, 
in addition to that, he rebukes as false professors the 
Christians who maintain a chaste reserve, he becomes 
censorious and condemnable. He then exhibits the 
" enthusiasm with an infusion of the malign emotions " 
— which is, as near as we can recollect, Isaac Taylor's 
exquisite definition of fanaticism. 

We are somewhat acquainted with the pages of 
the eminent masters of Holy Living and Dying, with 
Kempis, and Jeremy Taylor, and Henry More, and 
Fenelon ; and while we recognize in some of them a de- 
cided tendency to a holy repose, a sanctified quietism, 
and in others admissions that excited man it e stations are 
an unavoidable incident, we do not recollect in any of 



288 Statements : Theological and Critical. 



them a chapter implying that shouting or falling is 
any desirable accompaniment of a work of God, or any 
proper part of Christian sanctification. There are, in- 
deed, usually in every period of great religious excite- 
ment unavoidable overactions of this kind. The Bible 
attests that, in a ruder age, religious earnestness some- 
times manifested itself in shouting, leaping, and danc- 
ing. But it is a sad thing when these incidents are by 
weak persons exalted, as they sometimes are, to regu- 
lar institutions, and made tests of the genuineness and 
the exaltedness of piety. Such persons will graciously 
admit that some w 7 ho are Christians do not shout, but 
perhaps it is " because they have nothing to shout for." 
Where this test of piety and superior «holiness becomes 
established in a given Church, those who have no other 
qualifications are sure to adopt this route to distinction. 
To disregard the standard of civilization around them, 
and to overlook and override the feelings of fellow- 
Christians, are, in their view, a religious merit, a tri- 
umph of militant piety. More intelligent and thought- 
ful Christians either, like Edward Irving, bow in sub- 
mission to these self-anointed dictators; or, browbeaten 
and disheartened, silently retire, carrying their influence 
and means to build up the institutions of other church- 
es, wmich rise in power and success around us, and leav- 
ing us a residuum of feeble piety without influence or 
hold upon the community ; a standing quotation against 
Methodism, and an argument against all profession or 
attainment of higher religious life. In such a commu- 
nity you will hear it said, " There are members enough 
gone from us to other churches to form here, by them- 
selves, a powerful Methodist Church. " To steer clear 
of these evils without checking the spirit of a true Chris- 
tian zeal, and producing a reactionary coldness, is often 
a difficult problem. It requires the application of a 



Methodism. 



289 



skillful, loving, chastening hand upon the part of the 
wise pastor. 

Methodist Evangelism. 

A racy and suggestive writer in The Christian Quar- 
terly remarks: "The Methodist Church converts for all 
other Churches; for, of the products of an ordinary 
Methodist revival, some go to the Presbyterian, some 
to the Baptist, and some to the Episcopalian and other 
Churches. And of those who unite with the Methodist 
Church, including all classes of temperaments,, many 
subsequently leave it for others, because not constitu- 
tionally adapted to be Methodists. But, notwithstand- 
ing it supplies all other Churches, it still keeps itself 
larger than any of the rest, and increases at a faster 
rate." 

This is a truth both annoying and consoling. We 
have more than once said to a Presbyterian who viewed 
Methodists as a superfluous sect. "My dear sir, so far 
from our detracting from your strength, you are all the 
stronger for our existence. We not only back up all 
evangelical Christianity with our strength, but we are 
continually gathering in raw material from the world, 
converting it, and distributing it among other denomi- 
nations." The consolation of it is that essential Meth- 
odism is becoming infused into the entire evangelical 
Church. 

And this reminds us of two prophecies, one of which 
was fulfilled and the other not, as follow: 

One of the holiest men American Methodism ever 
produced was Rev. Nathaniel Porter, the first Principal 
of Cazenovia Seminary. We never saw him but once, and 
his heavenly face still lives in our memory. On his dy- 
ing bed he heard some zealous friends saying that they 
believed that every body would yet become Method- 
ists. " No," replied he, " all will not become Method- 
10 



290 Statements : Theological and Critical. 



ists, but all the sister denominations will become Meth- 
odized. Our life and zeal will in time quicken them 
all." Of that prophecy we have seen a great verifica- 
tion. 

The first interview we ever had with Dr. Durbin was 
in 1832. In that conversation he remarked: " We shall 
not grow, as a denomination, in the future as in the 
past. Heretofore when any one was in earnest for sal- 
vation he was obliged to come to us for sympathy and 
guidance. But other denominations have now become 
so enlivened that inquirers no longer need to come to 
us." Acute as the remark was, its prophecy has been 
signally falsified, and Dr. Durbin has had the honor to 
contribute largely to its non-fulfillment. 

The same writer thinks "the Unitarians the future 
Church," and the Methodists, "with their genius for 
change," quite likely to become the Unitarian Church. 
There is quite as much probability of our becoming 
Papists. He has no idea of our unchanging firmness 
of doctrine. He does not know that in England the 
Methodists hold themselves to be the most immovable 
stay of English orthodoxy. Now, as at the beginning, 
we hold fast to the theology of John Wesley, and could 
accurately express it on every point in John Wesley's 
own words. And this not by applying any staying 
force upon ourselves, but by a spontaneous and loving 
preference for the mild evangelicism of the Wesleyan- 
Arminian system. And if there is any thing in which 
Methodism exults and glories and shouts aloud with 
her loftiest voice, it is in proclaiming to the world the 
joyous message of a free, full, abounding, and unlimited 
redemption through the priceless atonement of the eter- 
nal Son of God. She runs with the feet of the roe, 
and flies with the wings of the eagle, to fill the world 
with that wonderful news. This is her joy and her 



Methodism. 



291 



life, and when this ceases she shall give up the ghost. 
She is then but a stupendous bubble, and the sooner 
she bursts and goes out the better. 

We need the rich and the refined and the learned, 
but not at the price of abandoning the poor and the 
uneducated. We want a ministry equal to the best in 
the Universal Church in erudition and pulpit talent 
and intellect; and we want a ministry that can go into 
the hamlet, hut, and the lowest cellar without overaw- 
ing their tenants with its respectability. How can these 
two be obtained and continued? How can each class 
and each man be induced to move contentedly, spon- 
taneously, and eagerly in his own sphere, unimpeded by 
jealousy against caste f Komanism can do it. Why 
not Methodism ? 

What Shall be the Future of Methodism % 

We are aware that some of our rationalistic friends 
tell us that such is the march of progress that Method- 
ism has no second century to live; the age of religious 
faith will, before the coming century closes, have merged 
in "the age of reason." That is, however, an old he- 
reditary boast. Julian was to " conquer the Galilean ; " 
Voltaire was to "crush the wretch;" but the Galilean 
conquered Julian, and the crucified One has " crushed " 
Voltaire. Dr. Strauss tried to criticise the " life of 
Jesus" out of existence; but Jesus Christ still lives, 
"the same yesterday, to-day, and forever;" and un- 
happy Dr. Strauss, in spite of his attempt at galvan- 
izing himself into a resurrection, is a dead man, and ter- 
ribly fitted, we fear, for a deeper literary damnation. 
We stand, blessed be God, on the Rock of nges, and 
we know who will conquer. And as for these gen- 
tlemen's boasted progress, we would have them bethink 
themselves where this glorious progress is to terminate. 



292 Statements : Theological and Critical. 



They may say in Rationalism, enlightenment, heights 
of science; but Monsieur Comte says in Atheism and 
ultimate beastliness ! His progress promises that men 
shall in a future age become " the unrecognizable 
wrecks of what had once been" civilized beings, 
" crawling over its surface, and degenerating, through 
stages of meaner and meaner vitality, back into shape- 
lessness and extinction." * Draper holds that after the 
age of reason, in which we now are, is past, the age 
of decrepitude and idiocy will succeed. Herbert Spen- 
cer predicts an age of " equilibration," in which every 
particle of the universe is to be perfectly immovably 
still, beyond which he can see no reason for any future 
motion ! Fit counterparts are these to Darwinism: one 
claims that man grew from brute; the other claims that 
man shall return to brute and worse than brute. Such, 
gentlemen Rationalists, is the goal of your progress y 
the cheering, elevating vista of your faith; the ulti- 
matum predicted by your great prophets ! John Stuart 
Mill is quoted as saying that the word necessity is " a 
brute of a word." And we say that all this is a brute 
of a philosophy; fit only for the hogs — "the hogs of 
Epicurus's sty." We thank God for that higher nat- 
ure that feels itself compelled to concentrate all its 
force to pronounce such doctrine of progress accursed. 
We, too, have a doctrine of progress, quite unlike this 
career through Rationalism and Atheism into bestial- 
ity. We believe not in a blind nature, but in a God 
who rules with infinitely wise design, and to a grand 
and glorious ultimate. We believe in the headship of 
the great Redeemer, in whom man is made divine. 
Under his leadership there is a "progress;" a prog- 
ress of the individual in knowledge, holiness, and fit- 
ness for an inheritance with the saints in light; a 
* Masson, p. 106. 



Methodism. 



293 



- progress of the Gospel of Christ, by means of his 
Church, to a universal millennial triumph; a progress 
of the world's history under the guidance of Provi- 
dence until its consummation in the final judgment of 
the human race by the eternal Son of God. In this 
faith our fathers died — as no Rationalist ever dies — 
with the shout of heavenly triumph on their lips. In 
this faith, brightened by the progress of another cent- 
ury, we have an unfaltering trust that our children will 
rejoice with a far more abounding joy than ours. 

The great evangelic Church of our present day, based 
upon the Old Testament and the New, successor of the 
prophets, apostles, and martyrs, the Church of the 
Trinity, the Atonement, and the Regeneration, stands 
at this moment refreshed with revival and the gift of 
the Spirit, exerting an aggressive power unparalleled 
since the Pentecostal day. Never was the- spirit of ho- 
liness more intense within her heart, never her love for 
her precious central truths more vital, never her plans 
of world-wide conquest so bold and so sure, never 
were her machineries so vast. Behold her centenaries 
dowered with outpoured millions; and count her lay- 
men rearing in massive granite her biblical institutes, 
for the very purpose, mark it well, of teaching forever 
the theology of James Arminius and John Chrysostom. 
While at home she is battling with vice and error in 
every form; dealing death-blows upon slavery, drunken- 
ness, profanity, and infidelity ; planting her spires on 
every hill and plain of all our land, she is distributing 
her Bibles by increasing millions to all the languages of 
our race, and commissioning her mission iries to every 
land of the habitable globe. And while these stupen- 
dous plans for human renovation are going forth in 
rapid progress, some silly gentlemen in or about Bos- 
ton, heirs in regular line to the Porphyrys, Lessings, and 



294: Statements: Theological and Critical. 



Tom Paines, are still scribbling essays about the obso- 
leteness of the Church and the destruction of Christian- 
ity ! Truly they are not the first fools who have mis- 
taken the cant of their own clique for the opinion of 
the world, nor imagined their own little horizon to coin- 
cide with the circumference of creation. 

Dr. Lord, in the Presbyterian Quarterly, discoursing 
on the Methodism of the past, in closing, thus remarks: 
" We imagine that this offshoot of the Anglican Church 
has reached its most triumphant period. It is losing 
that which is more convincing than authority, wiser 
than learning, more attractive than eloquence. It has 
felt the doctrine which it has preached; it has discarded, 
almost despised, the graces of culture; it has been rude 
and coarse, but it has been sincere and in earnest; it 
has not had many preachers who knew how to 'divide 
the word;' not many who could mix the light of the 
sun, the roar of the torrents, and the sublimity of the 
heavens in their speech; not many of melting voice, 
and graceful gesture, and beautiful simile; not many 
who could interpret the Psalms, or explain the proph- 
ets, or unfold ' the things hard to be understood ' in 
Peter and Paul; but it has had a great company who 
could teach the hearts of men, and make them ask, 
' What shall we do to be saved ? ' But like all reaction- 
ary churches, it at last comes to the state from which it 
reacted. It is ambitious for the things which it has 
left." 

This reminds us of an article in the Westminster Re- 
view of twenty years ago, touching on Wesley and 
Methodism, glorifying the first generation of English 
Methodists, as men of striking natural endowments and 
rare power for effect in consequence of their intense 
sincerity, and setting them in vivid contrast with the 
insincere, mechanical, and effete Methodism of the then 



Methodism. 



295 



dead present. Yet never in all her history has Method- 
ism made more gigantic advances than during the 
twenty years of that dead present. And during all 
that period, not a biennium has passed in which some 
prophet has not arisen, and with a rare freshness of in- 
spiration, blended with profound philosophy, predicted 
that "Methodism has fulfilled her mission; she was a 
great power in the past, but her methods and spirit will 
fail for the future." Dr. Lord's vaticination is one of 
the series, just as good as the thousand and one of its 
falsified predecessors. We do not think that w T ith the 
Presbyterian as with the infidel soothsayer the wish is 
father to the thought. But, somehow, the method of 
both is the same — a eulogy of the past to the disparage- 
ment of the present. And, somehow, the query arises, 
Did the past Methodism, when present, receive better 
courtesy than the now present ? When Wesley and 
his preachers were really living and at work, did infi- 
delity write eulogies on their characters ? And as for 
our American Methodism of fifty years ago — faugh ! 
what a mormo it was in the eyes of the then living 
Presbyterianism ! It is only the past, not the at any 
time present, Methodism, that these prophets admire. 
They write blazoning eulogies only on the assumption 
that their eulogies are epitaphs. 

Of the Methodist preaching of the past Dr. Lord 
knows about as much as he really does of the Method- 
ist preaching of the far future. A large share of our 
preaching has, no doubt, been rude and coarse; but 
never, like the parallel Presbyterian sermon-reading, 
sleepy and paralytic. And as for those "who could 
mix the light of the sun, the roar of the torrents, and 
the sublimity of the heavens in their speech," etc., the 
learned doctor prattles like a babe. It is from oratory 
as oratory, native-born pulpit oratory, such as the 



296 Statements: Theological and Critical. 



schools can never teach and seldom reach, that much of 
the popular power of Methodism in the past has been 
derived. When from a countless host we select the 
names of Asbury, McKendree, Bascorn, Sunmierfiekl, 
Maffit, Cookman, Fisk, and Olin, we fear no compari- 
sons. 

But Methodism is one of the "reactionary churches" 
and must relapse. What great Church, we reply, was 
not in its origin "reactionary"? Protestantism itself, 
Puritanism, Presbyterianism, and Quakerism — all, like 
Methodism, had their "reactionary" phase. Method- 
ism, like all but the last of these, possessed, however, 
not only a negative reactive phase, but it also has its 
positive element of permanent persistence. More than 
a century of tireless progress, unfolding in an increasing 
variety of methods and agencies, adjusting itself to 
every new demand of the age, would seem to decide. 
As for being " ambitious for the things it had left," 
Dr. Lord does not know, we presume, how widely he 
misstates our history. Methodism began in a univer- 
sity, and she did not go out, but was hustled out. She 
began in consecrated churches, and stayed until she 
was driven into the streets and fields. When she came 
to this country she found the college gates frowning 
upon her, and the "standing order" scowling at her. 
One of the first enterprises of our first bishops, Coke 
and Asbury, was to build a college and call it after 
their own names, Cokesbury College. And when 
reprimanded by Wesley for calling it so big . a 
thing as a "college," they none the less determined a 
college it should be. After it was twice burned down, 
leaving a heavy indebtedness, they concluded, perhaps 
not unwisely, that their immediate mission was the 
open Gospel field. For a while the university work 
was suspended. In that interval there arose, doubtless, 



Methodism. 



297 



hundreds among us who distrusted learning itself as an 
aid to religious progress. Popular preachers, even, 
feeling their defect of college education, indignantl} r 
deprecated the advantage they did not possess. But 
never did Methodism forget her origin in a university, 
or cease to boast that her founder was a " fellow " of 
Oxford. The very preacher who sneered at " college- 
bred parsons " was often heroic in his readiness for 
sacrifices in the cause of building " a college of our 
own." And when Methodism enters upon schools and 
colleges and universities and seminaries, she only re- 
turns to her starting.place. The scenes of enthusiastic 
liberality which we have witnessed in Methodist Con- 
ferences in behalf of a seminary or a college would 
fully attest both that the Methodist ministry never lost 
its original affinity for higher education, and that it 
had no doubt that our learning might be impregnated 
with all the glowing zest of our religion in the past. 
And this, we confess, is the problem before us. Here 
Dr. Lord predicts that we shall trip. Here, however, 
we think and trust that it is Dr. Lord himself that 
trips. 

For, does the learned doctor really believe that zeal- 
ous, aggressive piety, touched with the holy fire of the 
past, is really incompatible with learning ? We submit 
to Dr. Lord whether he is not herein adopting the very 
theory attributed to untaught Methodism, namely, that 
religious life must lower as the intellectual life rises. 
We believe no such libel upon our religion. The very 
fact that our Methodist opposers of education were con- 
verted to its cause by the sweeping revivals that proved 
our schools to be the place to get their children con- 
verted, is a cheerful prophecy that religious zeal and 
intellectual culture may beautifully blend in our future 
history. 



298 Statements : Theological and Critical. 



INFANT SALVATION. 
Historic Survey of the Doctrine of Infant Regeneration. 

It was a good many years ago when grand old Lyman 
Beecher published, in a Congregational periodical called 
The Spirit of the Pilgrims, an extended denial that the 
Calvinistic fathers held to the doctrine of infant damna- 
tion. This called forth from the Unitarian side a learned 
response, going over the historic ground, and giving 
plentiful quotations from those venerable fathers, which 
showed very sweepingly Dr. Beecher's unacqnaintance 
with their literature, and administered to him a Water- 
loo defeat. Within a decade or two Dr. Hodge made 
some similar adventures, which called out Dr. Krauth, 
of the Lutheran Church, who, with a still richer erudi- 
tion, marshaled a body of old literature and spread it so 
broadcast before the public that never will there be a 
third respectable denial. 

The doctrine of infant damnation was a part of the 
irrespective reprobation scheme introduced by Augus- 
i tine into the Western Church. At the Reformation it 
came in with the still severer irrespectivism of Calvin 
and other reformers, either as subjecting salvation to 
the accident of baptism, or to the absolute decree, irre- 
spective of free agency or " any thing in " the finite be- 
ing. And here we may note two things : 

First, the dogma of infant damnation spread through 
the Reformation Churches, including the Augsburg and 
the Anglican. It appears in the desert of " God's wrath 
and damnation" upon every one "born of Adam" of 
the ninth of the English Thirty-nine Articles. How 
narrowly our Wesleyan Methodism escaped this dogma, 
by a few providential strokes from the pen of John 
Wesley! And how lamentably strange it is that the 



Infant Salvation. 



299 



latest great system of theology published by an eminent 
Methodist scholar affirms that this erased passage is be- 
lieved by every Methodist ; that, indeed, the whole 
thirty -nine, the predestinarian seventeenth, included, is 
standard with Methodism ; and that this statement, 
without modification or annotation, is installed in The 
Course of Study of our American Methodist Episcopal 
Church ! Very plausibly it might be argued from such 
high authorities that Methodists themselves are main- 
tainers of the rightfulness of infant damnation ! 

Next, it is clear that infant regeneration has been 
extensively held by the Protestant Churches from the 
time of the Reformation until now. A limited infant 
salvation was based upon infant regeneration, and that 
upon infant baptism. And infant baptismal regenera- 
tion was as truly held by the Puritan as by the Church- 
man. This may be illustrated by the title of a book 
published at Oxford in 1629 : Baptismal Regenera- 
tion of Elect Infants, Professed by the Church of 
England, according to the Scriptures, the Primitive 
Church, the present Reformed Churches, and many par- 
ticular divines apart. By Cor. Burges, Dr. of D., and 
one of his Majestie's Chaplaines in Ordinary. Accord- 
ing to his mercy he saved us with the laver of regener- 
ation and renewing of the Holy Ghost." It closes with 
a Latin quotation from Augustine to the effect that 
" Sacraments effect what they symbolize in the elect alone? 
That the Presbyterian Church holds to infant regener- 
ation is conclusive enough from the following passage 
in the " Confession of Faith : " " Elect infants, dying in 
infancy, are regenerated, and saved by Christ through 
the Spirit, who worketh when and where and how he 
pleaseth." This corrects the error of those Methodist 
thinkers who, a few years ago, supposed that infant re- 
generation is an intrinsic absurdity and a heresy hitherto 



300 Statements : Theological and Critical. 



unknown in the Church. Wesley, it is said, believed 
originally that baptism regenerated ; but whether he 
ever held that it regenerated internally and efficiently, or" 
only externally and declaratorily, we are not so clear, not 
having thoroughly examined the record. In his earliest 
tract on baptism we believe that it will be found that he 
expressly declares that God's grace is not tied to ordi- 
nances. But certainly he did believe in infant regen- 
eration. 

Infant Damnation. 

The Christian. Intelligencer, the able organ of the 
(Dutch) Reformed Church, thus squarely puts the case : 
" The fact is, that any one who holds that infants are 
saved in Christ must hold, with Calvin, that they are 
lost in Adam. Salvation implies a previous perdition 
to be saved from. If infants are saved, it must be from 
damnation ; and if they are saved from damnation, the y 
must, in the sight of God the Saviour, deserve damna- 
tion. God never saves any creature from something 
which he does not merit." The Intelligencer thus, in 
its own estimation, forces upon us the alternative, no 
salvation in Christ or real damnation of infants in Adam. 
On this we remark : 

1. It is a very brave shouldering of the onus. All 
infants do deserve to go to hell. All infants are 
damned, if not in hell, yet in the womb or in the cradle. 
Stick a pin there. Infant damnation is just and right- 
eous. We submit, then, for any one to say, upon mere 
sentimental feeling, that this righteous thing never 
fin all v takes effect, is an effeminate dodge, entitled to 
no place in a manly theology. 

2. This assumption that every infant, that is, every 
human being, comes to a damned existence, is the very 
center, heart, back-bone, and base of Calvinistic elec- 
tion. Inasmuch as all are anteriorly damned alike, so 



Infant Salvation. 



301 



the infinite blind Polyphemus may dab his hand into the 
whole crowd and snatch one here and one there, for no 
reason or motive in the chance object, but from his own 
" mere good pleasure." And that is Calvinistic " elec- 
tion." And this is "glorious grace! " It is of no use 
for the Intelligencer to say that we misrepresent this 
matter. We state it truly, and we state it in the terms 
in which it ought to be stated ; and we hold it up to 
execration. If these doctors cannot give us a better 
theology than that, they had better step out. 

3. It is no doubt true that the infant is born a fallen 
moral being, incapable, without a renovation, of the 
blessedness of a holy heaven ; but it is not true that he 
is guilty or liable to actual damnation for being so 
born. Before his birth, provision has been made for 
his case. Fletcher of Madeley beautifully states it. As 
the sin of the infant in Adam is only seminal and con- 
ceptual, so his condemnation is only seminal and concept- 
ual, and his justification in Christ is seminal and concept- 
ual. He sinned only in Adam's loins ; he was damned 
only in Adam's loins ; and he is justified in Adam's loins, 
and in that justification he is born. And not only does 
he inherit justification from Christ, but he also inherits 
the regenerative baptism of the Spirit, entitling him not 
only to baptism and a place in the Church below, but 
also, dying in infancy, to a place in the Church above. 
Not until his complete forfeiture of the grace of the 
atonement by actual sin does he incur actual damna- 
tion. We, therefore, promptly reject the Intelligencer 's 
dogma, taken in its literal sense, that actual salvation of 
infants by Christ presupposes their previous actual 
damnation and actual desert of literal damnation in 
Adam. And we pray that its editor's heart may be 
softened, and his mind enlightened, and his pen be 
delivered from its inhumane theology. 



302 Statements : Theological and Critical. 



"Wesley's Excision of Hereditary Guilt from Our Articles. 

It is usually said that Methodist doctrine is every- 
where oue. And in regard to its great structure and 
outlines, this is true. Yet this is not a mere machine 
identity. In fixed and ascertained mathematical and 
mechanical science, our minds are so constructed, for 
wise reasons, that we ultimately see exactly alike. But, 
for equally wise reasons, in moral and theological sci- 
ence, there is room for play of variations amid our best 
agreement. Our varying individualities look even at 
the same acknowledged theological truth as with a dif- 
ferent pair of spectacles. So the different writers in 
the New Testament give us the same truth with varia- 
tions. Between Wesley and Clarke there were some 
differences. There are some differences between Wes- 
ley and Watson ; and between Wesley and Pope; and 
between Pope and Watson. And, if we mistake not, 
some different shades and phases exist between British 
and American Methodism, not only in Church organiza- 
tion but in theological doctrine ; and in both the Amer- 
ican is the more Wesleyan. It is the modern exegete 
that loves to trace the comparative individualities of 
the four gospels; our latest Methodist scholars will, 
perhaps, begin to scrutinize the individualism of our 
own theological standards. 

The most marked of Dr. Pope's peculiarities, in 
which, we would trust, he stands entirely alone, is his 
persistent statement that the whole Thirty-nine Articles 
of the English Church are the standard of our Methodist 
faith.* He first made that statement in his translation 

* Dr. Pope's position is disproved by Mr. Wesley's own publication, 
in 1786, of The Sunday Service of the Methodists in Ms Majesty's 
Dominions, with the identical Twenty-four Articles which he prepared 
for his American Methodists. — Eds. 



Infant Salvation. 



303 



of Winer, and we then recorded our " firm fraternal pro- 
test against " it. As Winer was a work for theological 
scholars generally, Dr. Pope was able to set the echoes 
flying through English theology, proclaiming our alle- 
giance to the Thirty-nine. But as Dr. Schaff esteemed 
our protest of sufficient importance to be inserted in his 
great work, The Creeds of Christendom (vol. i, p. 893), 
our declaration of independence had a somewhat simi- 
lar general circulation. It seems amazing, in view of 
the fact that Wesley deliberately struck out fifteen of 
those Thirty-nine Articles, and struck out important 
words and sentences from the remainder, that one of 
our standard theologians should assure the world that 
the whole were somehow standard for us. And in his 
A Compendium of Christian Theology, Dr. Pope gives 
a peculiar force to this assurance by defining our doc- 
trine of the effect of original sin by quoting the entire 
Ninth Article of the Thirty-nine, the most pointed part 
of which was struck out by Wesley ; and this he does, 
prefacing it with the words, " Methodism accepts the 
article of the English Church." Vol. ii, page 80. That 
is, "Methodism accepts" the very doctrine which Wesley 
rejected ! The Wesleyan doctrine of depravity is de- 
fined in terms that Wesley abolished ! We give the arti- 
cle entire, with the rejected part in italics, and two re- 
jected special clauses and two rejected words in capitals : 
" Original sin standeth not in the following of Adam, 
(as the Pelagians do vainly talk), but it is the fault 
and corruption of the nature of every man, that natu- 
rally is engendered of the offspring of Adam ; whereby 
man is very far gone from original righteousness, and 
is of his own nature inclined to evil [Wesley here closes 
with and that continually] so that the flesh lusteth always 
contrary to the Spirit ; and therefore tn every person 

BORN INTO THIS WORLD IT DESERVETH God's WRATH 



301 Statements: Theological and Critical. 



and damnation. And this infection of nature doth 
remain, yea, in them that are regenerated; whereby 
the hist of the flesh called in Greek fyQovr^ia oapttog, 
which some do expound the wisdom, some sensuality, 
some the affection, some the desire of the flesh, is not sub- 
ject to the law of God. And although there is no con- 
demnation for them tliat believe and are baptized, yet the 
apostle doth confess that concupiscence and lust hath of 
itself the nature of sin." 

Both for the clumsiness of its form and the heresy of 
its doctrine we think that every American Methodist 
could be thankful to Wesley for our deliverance from 
this article, and no way thankful for its reinstatement 
by any authority. Wesley doubtless struck out this 
large portion mainly in view of the three capitalized 
passages. The former two plainly affirmed the false 
dogma of personal desert of damnation, even in the infant, 
our personal guilt, for original sin. The last seems to 
deny the doctrine of entire sanctification. It is the for- 
mer with which we deal at present, and we remark : 

1. Wesley rejects the doctrine of our personal desert 
of damnation here affirmed, for the very reason that it 
contradicts our intuitive sense of right and justice. 
That rejection removes from theology a contradiction 
to the moral sense and to common sense. Great were 
Wesley's logical powers ; greater his administrative 
powers ; but greatest of all his intuitive powers. His 
primitive intuitive perceptions might for the time 
being be overborne by hereditary prejudices, or clamor 
of dogmas, or temporary exigencies of argument; but 
when he hushed all these hinderances, his intuitive 
faculties spoke with an almost infallible clearness. 
And, undoubtedly, the moment when he prepared these 
Twenty-four Articles was, if any moment of his life, the 
crisis when he looked at pure, absolute truth. These 



Infant Salvation. 



305 



articles were to be for all Methodism standard ; and if 
ever, in sermon, essay, treatise, or commentary, he has 
expressed a different view, that different view is can- 
celed before this one monumental record. Wesley 
himself would then have to be overruled by his own 
Twenty-four Articles by us accepted " of faith." 

And we make this last remark in some degree in ref- 
erence to Dr. Pope's unqualified indorsement of Wes- 
ley's treatise on Original Sin. That is a valuable work, 
but written early in his life, in an earnest antagonism 
against the Socinian Taylor, under strong, one-sided 
influence from the readings of Jennings and Watts, 
extracts from whose writings form a considerable part 
of his volume, and at a period long before his final for- 
mulation of faith for the Methodist body. There are 
some passages in it, especially the illustration of original 
sin from the English law of attainder — a law so funda- 
mentally unjust that our own national Constitution has an 
article expressly forbidding it in America — which must 
be read under modification of our Twenty-four Articles. 

2. Wesley clearly saw that this clause lay at the 
foundation of the Genevan theology from which it 
came. If all are born under desert of damnation, then 
all mankind may be justly damned for original sin. 
They are, in fact, born damned. And that is infant 
damnation, a dogma unquestioned in old Geneva. And 
then, if all are in birth-damnation, justly and from de- 
sert, Geneva could triumphantly maintain that it was 
" glorious grace " for God to pick out a few, no better 
than the rest, and "for nothing in them moving him 
thereto," and give them to Christ for salvation. Grant 
the premise expressed in this clause, and the Genevan 
deduction is irresistible. And so granting, our mouths 
are stopped as against Calvinian reprobation. The 
whole scheme is at once legitimated. 
20 



306 Statements : Theological and Critical. 



How outsiders understand us is indicated by their 
statements. In a survey of the progress of religious 
denominations during our national century closing in 
1876, Professor Diman, a Baptist, in an article in the 
North American Review, said that a great source of our 
success in America was our " protest " against the " the- 
ological doctrine of hereditary merit and demerit," a pro- 
test in accordance with the Republican spirit of our time. 

Dr. Schaff, after a thorough study of our standards, 
thus states our doctrine in his Creeds of Christendom : 

" Wesley, Fletcher, and Watson, describe this natural 
corruption in consequence of Adam's fall in the darkest 
colors, almost surpassing the description of Augustine, 
Luther, and Calvin ; but they deny the personal re- 
sponsibility of Adam's posterity for his fall, or the doc- 
trine of original guilt" (vol. i, p. 897.) 

And precisely that we suppose to be the view pre- 
sented by our best American theological writers, in 
precise accordance with Wesley's rejection, in our Arti- 
cles, of the desert of damnation for original sin. The 
most eminent, thus far, of our American theological 
thinkers, Dr. Wilbnr Fisk (quoted in our note on Rom. 
v, 18), says, "Guilt is not imputed until, by a voluntary 
rejection of the Gospel, man makes the depravity of 
his nature the object of his own choice. Hence, al- 
though, abstractly considered, this depravity is destruc- 
tive to its possessors, yet through the grace of the Gos- 
pel all are born free from condemnation." That truly 
avoids the doctrine of desert of damnation for Adam's 
sin. By that view man's corrupt nature is guiltless 
until by a free act of sin he has appropriated that nature 
and made himself responsible for it. It is, then, not a 
" hereditary guilt," but a hereditary nature personally 
made guilty. Similar views to those of Dr. Fisk have 
been expressed by Bledsoe, Raymond, Miley, Summers, 



Infant Salvation. 



307 



and Bishop Merrill. Dr. Miley's view was given in his 
able article on Pope's theology in the Methodist Quarter- 
ly Review, and in his valuable book on the Atonement 
placed in ihe " Course of Study " by our Bishops. Our 
own views are exhibited in our notes on Rom. v, 12-21, 
and Eph. ii, 3. Adam, by sin, fell into a lower moral 
plane, into the level of mere nature, and became thereby 
liable to death. His posterity generatively inherited 
that nature, but irresponsibly. Yet, as "potential sin- 
ners," and nearly certain, sooner or later, amid the 
constancies of temptation, to fall into responsible sin 
and incur eternal death, they could not wisely have 
been brought into existence but for the provision of 
grace. It was out of the nature of things that they 
could have been guilty, that is, under " desert of God's 
wrath and damnation " for being " born " of fallen 
Adam. They were sinwardly disposed ; and so their in- 
trinsic nature was diverse from their divine nature ; 
intrinsically bad ; but not responsibly bad until their 
own free appropriative choice made them responsibly 
bad, and subjected them to such "desert." 

Wesley did indeed leave in the Second Article the 
clause " a sacrifice not only for original guilt, but also 
for the actual sins of men." And the phrase "original 
guilt " did mean, unquestionably, as it came from the 
pen of its Calvinistic authors, " hereditary guilt ; " but 
not in Wesley's theology. Had he so construed its un- 
changeable meaning he would have erased it, as he did 
the equivalent phrases in the Ninth Article. He doubt- 
less retained it because a true meaning could be read 
into it. Such a meaning is furnished in the words of 
Fisk, already quoted. By our first appropriating act of 
sin we are doubly guilty; guilty for that as for an act 
of sin, and guilty for our existing evil nature, so made 
responsibly our own. And in that evil nature so made 



808 Statements: Theological and Critical. 



our own is the "original guilt" from which all our sub- 
sequent guiltiness proceeds. It is original guilt both as 
originated at the commencement, of our individual re- 
sponsibility, and as the originating fountain for all our 
future condemnations. So with our whole race that 
falls into sin. We need " a sacrifice," not only for our 
actual (or actional) sins, but for the antecedent guilt of 
the corruption, indorsed by us, from which they flow. 

In apparently diametrical opposition to Dr. Fisk's 
statement is Dr. Pope's view in vol. ii, p. 8-i : " The 
true doctrine is opposed also to every account of sin 
which insists that it cannot be reckoned such by a right- 
eous God save where the will actively consents ; and 
that none can be held responsible for any state of soul 
or action of life which is not the result of the will at the 
time. There is an offending character behind the offend- 
ing will." But if that previous " offending character" 
has not been superinduced by previous free act of will, if 
it be necessitatedly inherited from Adam, it bears (ac- 
cording to Wesley), no "desert of wrath and damnation." 
As we understand Dr. Pope, he does restore Wesley's re- 
jected thesis, and in declaring his allegiance to the Thir- 
ty-nine, is at variance with the Twenty-four, Articles. 

Dr. Pope has a chapter on " Hereditary Guilt," and 
one on Hereditary Depravity. Now, Hereditary De- 
pravity we know ; but " Hereditary Guilt " we do not 
know. He defines guilt as " the personal consciousness 
of being responsible for the wrong." But surely the 
guilt and the " consciousness " of the guilt are two 
things. The guilt is hardly more than the having inten- 
tionally performed the wicked action. When a jury 
finds a man guilty of murder they simply mean that 
he has performed the intentional act defined as murder. 
Hence, guilt is a personal thing, and is neither inherita- 
ble nor transferable. Upon the guilt follows desert of 



Infant Saltation. 



809 



penalty ; and that is neither inheritable (as Wesley 
decides), nor transferable. Again, he says: "Guilt has 
another meaning. It is the sure obligation to pun- 
ishment." But the "obligation to punishment 1 ' (if 
such a phrase is allowable), is not so much the " guilt " 
as the " desert " that follows the guilt. There is the 
being guilty of the act, and that is one thing ; and there 
is a desert of punishment consequent upon, and insep- 
arable from, the guilt, and that is another thing. And 
as guilt is uninheritable and untransferable, and desert 
is uninheritable and untransferable, so punishment is 
uninheritable and untransferable. So, also, there can 
be no so-called imputed guilt unless imputed to the 
actual transgressor. The very phrase " imputed guilt " 
upon an innocent person confesses his innocence, and 
so falsifies itself and declares itself a calumny. The 
phrase " imputed righteousness " also implies that the 
righteousness imputed does not truly exist ; and the 
phrase is merely a gracious one, implying forgiveness. 
The former would be an injustice, and cannot exist ; 
the latter is a graciousness that, at least verbally, may 
exist. 

The Kelation of Children to Redemption. 

Very delicately must we criticise the application of 
the word "sinful " to our original moral state; for it is 
authorized by general theological use. But it is an am- 
biguity pregnant with mistake. If it mean guilty of 
sin, sin-guilty, we deny its application. If it mean sin- 
ward-tending, we concur. And this term sinward, with 
its derivative sinwardness, is with us a most expressive 
and explicit key-word. The predicate sinful ordinarily 
means guilt; the term sinward means a tendency which 
is not in itself guilty. Sinwardness expresses that ten- 
dency to sin w r hich our Seventh Article describes as our 
depraved moral state. " Depravity " is sinwardness. 



310 Statements : Theological and Critical 



Nor do we like the term " principle of sin," as if there 
were deposited within us a positive entity of sin, a sub- 
stance or a lump. Our depravity by the fall is, as Wat- 
son says, " a depravation by deprivation." It is an orig- 
inal sinwardness consequent on the original deprivation 
of the Spirit. Before the fall the divine Spirit, the reg- 
ulator over the soul, pointed man with easy and predom- 
inant preference to the rightful course. That divine reg- 
ulator lost, man's passions become unrestrained, and run 
chaotically wild. Before the moral agent in this world 
after the fall the ways of wrong set open by selfishness 
and by specific sensations are a thousand, while the way 
of right is one. Nor is this sinwardness a tendency to 
sin as to one positive individual object ; it is a tending, 
regardless of the divine regulator and the divine law, 
toward any preferred object of gratification. Sin is not 
necessarily chosen as sin, but it is chosen, regardless of 
obligation, as gratification. The object or course of ac- 
tion most gratifying to the individual's feelings becomes 
predominant, and forms a habitual " bent to sinning " in 
that direction. This sinwardness is rather a settled state 
of the soul than an inwardly deposited " principle." 

Men do, when the probational alternatives of right and 
wrong present themselves, very uniformly, apart from 
grace, land in the wrong, sooner or later. Hence there 
is so uniform a sinning that men are, by unsanctified 
natural state, called sinners. And so St. Paul says all sin, 
and the many are made sinners. This is just the sense of 
Wesley's words in our above-quoted Seventh Article, "of 
his own nature inclined to evil, and that continually." 

Let us carefully note that it is one thing to be bad, 
and another thing to be responsible or guilty for that 
badness. If we are created by God, either immediately 
or through the medium of birth, depraved, we are truly 
depraved, but not, therefore, responsible or guilty. 



Infant Salvation. 



311 



The infant, therefore, possesses depravity, but not 
guilt. That is a key-saying of Wilbur Fisk's : " Guilt 
is not imputed until, by a voluntary rejection of the 
Gospel, man makes the depravity of his nature the ob- 
ject of his own choice. Hence, although abstractly con- 
sidered, this depravity [sinwardness] is destructive to 
its possessors, yet through the grace of the Gospel all 
are born free from [judicial] condemnation." As de- 
praved, there is a contrariety of character between a 
holy God and the irresponsibly unholy infant being. 
There is a real, but not judicial, displacency of God 
toward him. As undeserving, yet unpunishable, as un- 
holy, yet not responsible therefor, he is contrarious and 
naturally, but not judicially, offensive to God. That 
displacency holds him guiltlessly inclined to sin ; which 
is not properly sinfulness, but sinwardness. In saying 
that such displacency is not judicial, we mean that it 
can inflict no just punishment. This displacency is the 
"condemnation" of Rom. v, 18; that is, the natural 
displacency toward an evil non-free agent; which "con- 
demnation " is not the judicial, punitive, damnation of a 
guilty free-agent. If God can create a being bad, and 
damn him for being the bad he is created to be, then he 
may create a world of reprobates, and damn them all 
for being the bad he has made them. 

When our Arminianism affirms that Christ, by his 
sacrificial death, became our second Adam, and acquired 
the blood-bought right to reconstruct our future proba- 
tionary existence, it enables us to say that thereby he, 
by virtue and merit of this self-sacrifice, became enti- 
tled to adjust his provisions to all the peculiarities and 
specialties of all classes and all individuals of the race. 
The born individual, thereby, though not judicially con- 
demned, is displacent, and, as unholy, is offensive to 
God ; and so the reconciliation of that displacency, in 



312 Statements : Theological and Critical. 



order that God's face may shine upon him, is a blood- 
bought grace. That unholiness is so expiated, and that 
divine displacency is, through Christ's sole merits, so 
propitiated, that the infant's actual guiltlessness may be 
divinely recognized and held by God available for his 
justification as truly as that unreal, but virtual, guilt- 
lessness of the adult procured through pardon. He 
thereby stands in the same essential gracious position as 
the forgiven and justified adult. No justice, human or 
divine, can indeed pardon the guiltless, just because 
there was nothing to pardon. But pardon and declara- 
tory justification are two things. Christ, by his self- 
oblation, is entitled, as our advocate, to declare the in- 
fant's justification, unworthy though he be through his 
sin ward nature, against all who would u lay charge " 
against him. " Who shall lay any thing to the charge 
of God's elect? It is God that justifieth," just because 
"it is Christ that died." And thus being justified and 
reconciled, the infant becomes fit subject for the gra- 
cious influence of the Spirit that cures that sinwardness 
and regenerates the nature; so that (whether we use 
the term regenerate or not), the infant is in the same 
essential condition as that into which the justified and 
regenerate adult is brought by voluntary faith. Justi- 
fication effected by securing the efficacy of guiltless- 
ness honors the Redeemer's sacrificial work as much 
as justification effected by securing the pardon of sin. 
There is, therefore, no need of imagining a fictitious 
guilt in order to show a pardon which is as fictitious. 
The divine real recognition of guiltlessness is as gra- 
cious as the divine virtual recognition of guiltlessness 
through pardon. There is no more difficulty, then, 
in understanding how, at death, the infant spirit is re- 
ceived into paradise, than how the regenerate adult is ; 
and no more difficulty in understanding how he is just as 



Infant Salvation. 



313 



readily glorified in the resurrection; and no more diffi- 
culty in seeing how the whole process is gracious, blood- 
bought, in one case than the other. 

We understand that baptism is " an outward sign of 
an inward grace,' 1 namely, of the regeneration which it 
symbolizes ; and we see no right or reason for the " out- 
ward sign " to be given where the " inward grace " has 
no existence, and never may have. Our Seventeenth 
Article declares that "Baptism is not only a sign of 
profession and mark of difference whereby Christians 
are distinguished from others that are not baptized," 
etc. That is, baptism is a distinctive sign of the pro- 
fessed and accepted Christian. Baptism assumes and 
declares its subject to be a Christian. But " baptism," 
while it is that, "is not only "that; it is something 
more. " It is also a sign of regeneration, or the new 
birth." The affusion of the baptismal water pictures 
the descent of the regenerating Spirit. But why pict- 
ure upon the subject what has no existence there? And 
so, by our Baptismal Service, the congregation is ex- 
horted to pray that the personal subject " being bap- 
tized with water, may also be baptized with the Holy 
Ghost, be received into Christ's holy Church, and become 
a lively member of the same." Now in this passage 
there is twice a be and once a become. And the two-fold 
be asks the present grace, namely, the "Hoty Ghost "and 
membership in the Church of Christ ; and the become 
asks a future blessing, namely, a continued living mem- 
bership of the Church. And, as infant baptism is to be 
" retained in the Church," so it is the baptized infant 
that is signed and distinguished as a present Christian, 
while the Holy Ghost and entrance into the Church are 
his present gifts and graces. That this article originally 
avowed " infant regeneration," both by the old Church 
and by Wesley, we know, for we know that they held 



314 Statements : Theological and Critical. 



to baptismal regeneration. The regeneration of the 
infant was to them no novelty and absurdity. So that 
infant regeneration is an old Church doctrine. And, 
being in this our article, it is our Church doctrine. Yet 
we hold, as Wesley did in later life, that infant baptism 
sustains, not a causative, but a declaratory, relation to 
regeneration. Baptism does not (except in an external 
sense of the word), regenerate the subject, but recognizes 
his regeneration. And the infant is entitled to baptism, 
not, indeed, because he has faith, but because he is, 
through the unconditional power of the atonement, with- 
out actual faith, what the adult has become through 
faith. For even the adult is baptized, not so much be- 
cause of his faith as because he has by faith attained 
that regeneration of which baptism is symbol and seal. 
And herein is the true, impregnable ground of infant 
baptism. We cannot agree with Professor Burwash in 
saying that Wesley's words about sinning "away the 
grace received in baptism " " belonged not to the Meth- 
odist Arminian theology which he was founding, but to 
the Churchism which he was leaving behind." Most 
certainly our Seventeenth Article and our ritual do avow 
" a grace received in baptism." Are the fervent pray- 
ers of our service all a vain form, a nonentity, a heresy? 
Do they not ask a present divine power upon the spirit 
of the child ? And does not apostasy sin away the grace 
of regeneration recognized and objectively " received in 
baptism ? " Baptism initiates the infant into the Church 
of Christ, but not into a particular Church organiza- 
tion, as the Methodist Episcopal Church. It is that or- 
ganization, how T ever, that is bound to require the full 
evidence of true justifying faith in its catechumen, in 
order to admission to its fellowship and its ordinances. 
In our own Methodist Episcopal Church the approved 
probationer is publicly examined as to his spiritual state 



Infant Salvation. 



315 



and purposes. As a mere seeker he cannot be admitted 
into the Church, though voluntarily in class under her 
nurture. Of the probationary candidates, when com- 
ing forward for full membership, it is said : " Into this 
holy fellowship the persons before you, who have al- 
ready received the sacrament of baptism, and have been 
under the care of proper leaders for six months on trial, 
come seeking admission." And then it is asked of them, 
"Have you saving faith in the Lord Jesus Christ? 
Ans. I trust I have." Through this catechumenship 
and induction the worldling does not desire to pass. 
It would be by the relaxation of these safeguards, that 
is, by the baptism and admission of mere professed seek- 
ers, and not by the doctrine of present infant salvation, 
that the Church would become secularized. 

The Relation of Baptized Children to the Church. 

The action of the Church [in inserting, in 1864, in the 
Discipline, a series of regulations thus entitled] recog- 
nizes that our children are children of the Church. She 
takes all obtainable children into her nursery. She recog- 
nizes baptized children as virtually within the pale of the 
Church. She only waits the mature and intelligent evi- 
dence of a hopeful regenerate character to call them to 
the communion table. We cordially welcome these move- 
ments. We welcome the whole discussion of the " infant 
question" as sure to result in truth and good. That the 
Church has in the past rather floated along both in 
measure and doctrine on this all-important point is ow- 
ing to her vigorous and busy immaturity. Let not our 
thinking men fear or tremble at the submission of the 
whole question to what it has never had, a full and fra- 
ternal discussion. A large number of our best thinkers 
hold that while, irrespective of the atonement, man is 
depraved in his entire nature, yet that the child is met 



316 Statements : Theological and Ckitical. 



by the atonement at his entrance into life, and placed 
in a saved state. But that is matter of mere theory. 
When it comes to the matter of practice we suppose 
that most of them would esteem the present measure 
of the General Conference as quite sufficiently advanced. 
If we understand those thinkers aright, they would 
rather fear that it goes too far. They would rather 
ask a more guarded requirement of explicit evidence of 
a true religious experience, of a settled regenerate 
nature, before the final ratification of complete Church- 
membership. There may be, we have no doubt there 
are, children who have never been in an unsaved state. 
It would be a melancholy thing if there were not. It 
would be a strange Gospel that requires every human 
being to pass some part of his life in a state of heirship 
of hell. There are, so far as experience shows, those 
who " need no conversion ; " happy but rare cases, in 
which Christian nurture and the Spirit's influences have 
so blended as to precede and preclude what Mr. Wesley 
calls the loss " of the grace received in baptism ; " or, as 
some would say, the grace received before baptism, of 
which baptism is but the outward sign and seal. O 
that Church spirituality and parental piety were strong 
enough to make this the rule and not the exception ! 
Normally now the evidence of qualification for the full 
Church profession is through conviction of sin and 
conversion. Infant regeneration, if it exists, certainly 
does not secure childhood piety. Our children are not 
of course Christians. Nor, certainly, without the proper 
evidence, are they to be called Christians. Childhood 
does often exhibit a tenderness of conscience, an eager 
interest in holy things, a simple realizing faith that 
makes elder Christianity blush for itself. The repul- 
sive pictures drawn by unflinching theologians of de- 
praved infancy and childhood are often far more appli- 



Infant Salvation. 



317 



cable to even professing Christian parents, who have 
mature reason to guide them and so less excuse, than to 
the child. We shrink from such partial pictures, invid- 
iously selecting certain special evil traits, and assum- 
ing that infant piety should be more perfect than adult 
regeneration. We fully approve, then, the changes of 
the Discipline that bid us meet our children with a 
tenderer feeling. Or, if we have any exception to 
take, it is to the want of a sufficient demarcation line 
requiring in more express terms a regenerate charac- 
ter as condition of unqualified Church membership. 

The readers of the Methodist Quarterly Review will 
recollect an article by the late lamented Dr. Nadal, sus- 
taining Infant Baptism on the ground that the Church 
does not require regeneration in her membership. Al- 
though we hold this to be the most unscriptural, most 
dangerous, and most un-Methodistical of all the views 
proposed, we did not feel at liberty to exclude the 
Church from hearing what one of her most learned and 
loyal sons had to say in its behalf. The Christian 
Church, in our view, aims, however imperfectly the aim 
is accomplished, to be the Church of the Regenerate. 
Dr. NadaPs view, we think, contradicts our Thirteenth 
Article of Faith, which declares that " The visible 
Church of Christ is a congregation of faithful men." 
In regard to which it may be affirmed, 1. That the un- 
regenerate are not " faithful " men ; 2. That in the view 
of the Church the baptized infant is a "faithful " man. 
If " seekers " have in former times been admitted by 
our Church to the " class," it is not properly as mem- 
bers of the Church. We never knew a "seeker" to be 
baptized; he can be dropped by the pastor without 
trial ; and all such should be, so soon as they cease 
to be sincere "seekers." They are admitted to the 
" class " simply in order to receive the aid of a spirit- 



318 Statements : Theological and Ceitical. 



ual adviser so long as they feel the need of advice and 
are disposed to profit by it. A good Baptist like Mr. 
Marsh, of course, agrees with us in rejecting the doctrine 
of an unregenerate Church. • He differs from us in infer- 
ring, therefrom, the impropriety of Infant Baptism. 

The indefiniteness of opinion on this subject, described 
by Mr. Marsh * as general, certainly exists in our own 
Church. It arises, we believe (and in this entire discus- 
sion we desire to be understood as speaking not repre- 
sentatively but individually), from the fact that a major- 
ity of our Church has unconsciously varied from our 
own standards. A large majority has, if we mistake 
not, contrary to Arminius, to Wesley, to Fletcher, and 
to our Articles of Faith, come to hold that the living 
infant is neither justified nor regenerate, and becomes so 
only on condition of death. This we understand from 
Mr. Marsh to be the present Baptist view. It seems to 
imply a present infant condemnation; and, at any rate, 
under the Calvinistic view of an irrespective, unfore- 
knowing decree, both of foreordination and reproba- 
tion, the logical result is eternal infant damnation. This 
last doctrine Mr. Marsh repudiates in behalf of all Cal- 
vinists of the present day; but, accepting fully his rejec- 
tion of the dogma, we aver that log'cally he ought to 
accept it. Here, if pressed closely, he would find him- 
self involved in a "puzzle" quite as perplexing as any 
he imputes to Pedobaptists. 

The theory which, in our individual view, comes most 
nearly to our best standards, is very nearly in Mr. 
Marsh's words : " That infants are to be baptized 
because under the atonement they are born regenerate." 
Dr. Nadal refers to this theory, and repudiates it as being 
"certainly in the very teeth of the teaching of the Or- 

* Article on Infant Baptism and a Regenerated Church Membership 
Irreconcilable, Bibliotheca Sacra, 1872. 



Infant Salvation. 



319 



thodox Church in all ages." When this view was advo- 
cated by Merceiu, Hibbard and Gilbert Haven, it was re- 
jected very indignantly by most of our best thinkers ; 
and, in humorous allusion to the initials of the last writer 
(afterward one of our Bishops), it was said that G. H. 
stood for " Great Heretic." Yet we believe it clear that 
Dr. Hibbard's view is about the view of the Church, if 
her formulas are to decide the question. 

One minute but important correction, however, is to 
be made. Arminius, Wesley, Fletcher, and Fisk could 
not be said to hold that infants -are " born regenerate." 
The true statement would be that they are born into 
the world depraved ; but, as Fisk expresses it, " the 
atonement meets them with its provisions at their en- 
trance." Their justification or regeneration, so far as 
it exists, is not congenital but post-genital. The atone- 
ment fills this probationary world with its influence, 
and the human being receives his atoning justification 
consequent upon his having entered into it. It is as if 
a room were filled with a purifying influence, and a 
leper is cleansed by . entering within its walls. The 
question is not as to the genuineness or the depth of the 
depravity as derived from Adam, or from the immedi- 
ate parent. That depravity is done up in all the ele- 
ments of the foetal man. Nor does regeneration, infant 
or adult, absolutely remove it until completed at the 
glorification ; for both infant and adult still retain sus- 
ceptibility to temptation and sin, mortality, disease, and 
death, until the final renovation. 

And here comes in our reply to Dr. Nadal's argu- 
ment against infant regeneration, pushed by him with 
much emphasis, drawn from the fact of the sinfulness 
of the growing and grown-up race. It is much the same 
argument as Watson pushes against the non depravity 
of the race drawn from the uniform wickedness of the 



320 Statements : Theological and Ckitical. 



race. But Nadal's argument has none of the force of 
Watson's. Our inherent depravity is not entirely re- 
moved by regeneration until the regeneration is com- 
pleted at the resurrection. For the best of us, the 
maintenance of our saved or regenerate state is a work 
of care, skill, and firm volition. These qualities the un- 
nurtured child does not possess, and hence he falls an 
easy victim to sin. The nurtured child may retain an 
unfortified Christian character. It is at this age, indeed, 
that docility to truth, conscientiousness, and simple piety 
often unfold themselves. 

Here let us observe, 1. Our later writers do not rig- 
idly insist on the word regeneration as the technic to 
designate this saved state of the living. That word is 
framed in Scripture normally for adults. And it may 
be objected as absurd that a man should be generated 
and regenerated in instantaneous succession. This is 
not, indeed, a very valid objection. What is meant by 
these writers is, that the state of the saved living infant 
is essentially the same for an infant as the state into which 
regeneration brings the adult. And so infant justifica- 
tion is, for the infant, the same as that justification into 
which faith brings the adult believer. The adult believer 
is not baptized — let our Baptist brother mark this — be- 
cause he believes, but because he is justified and regen- 
erated in sequence to his belief. The infant, £>ossessing 
that same justification, is entitled to that same baptism. 

2. This does not imply baptismal regeneration or rit- 
ualism. The infant is not regenerate because he is bap- 
tized, but is baptized because he is virtually a believer, 
and so virtually justified and regenerate. 

3. This avoids the danger of an unregenerate Church- 
membership. If the infant so grows up in the nurture and 
admonition of the Lord as never to lose his saved state 
(no imaginary case) he needs no conversion. He will 



Infant Salvation. 



321 



bring forth the fruits showing him entitled to an unfor- 
feited Church-membership. Otherwise, his member- 
ship is forfeited, as in any other case of apostasy. Nev- 
ertheless, not only most children, but most adults, often 
need converting over and over again. 

Methodist Authorities on Infant Regeneration. 

Miss Catherine Beecher informs us that she finds in 
the Episcopal Church the true theory of educated piety, 
in distinction from the revival piety of Puritanism and 
Methodism. To baptize the child and hold him to be 
a Christian, to train him by catechisms, and forms, and 
instilled principles to mature profession, as an of course 
Christian, is the true method for all churches and all the 
world. Her doctrinal theory is unequivocally Pelagian. 
She holds that every human being born into the world 
is as innocent and pure by nature as the new-made 
Adam, and that development of the nature is the requi- 
site for adult Christianity and salvation. To this view 
she believes, very mistakenly, we think, that the Chris- 
tian world is gravitating. Within the range of our 
observation no such tendency exists. 

Miss Beecher compliments Wesley and Methodism 
for their " common sense." They use their common sense 
in this, that they are a living reaction against the nom- 
inal Christianity produced by merely baptismal and ed- 
ucated Christianity. We believe much in educational 
piety; we see nothing wrong in calling a baptized child, 
in a broad sense of the word, "a Christian ;" but we 
believe it would be a fatal day for the true vitality 
of Methodism when a fully evidenced justifying faith 
in Christ is not required in order to a complete Church 
membership. When Methodism arrives at this point 
she may as well merge herself into the dead ecclesi- 
asticism from which she rose, for her mission is ended. 
21 



322 Statements : Theological and Ckitical. 



Miss Beecher announces 'that a new development is 
taking place in the Methodist Episcopal Church, which, 
she imagines, will result in childhood Church-member- 
ship. We doubt the newness of the matter she de- 
scribes. To show how great our advance is, she quotes 
a passage from Arminius, in which that great doctor 
taught that infants are by "the covenant comprehended 
and adjudged in their parents," and so have " sinned " 
and become "obnoxious to God's wrath." But if she 
will turn to his works, vol. i, page 318 (American edi- 
tion), she will find that by that same covenant there 
is, in his opinion, a provision of grace in which chil- 
dren are so included, as putative believers, " as not to 
seem to be obnoxious to condemnation." Both of these 
views are consistent, and may be correct. Condemned 
by the covenant in Adam, living children, like believ- 
ers, may be justified in Christ. If Miss Beecher will 
turn to Fletcher's Checks, vol. i, page 461, she will find 
that writer expressly maintaining the doctrine of both 
the "justification" and the "regeneration" of living 
infants. In a note he adds these remarkable words: 
"Those who start at every expression they are not 
used to will ask if our Church admits of the justification 
of infants? I answer, undoubtedly; since her clergy, 
by her direction, say over myriads of infants, ' We 
}~ield thee hearty thanks, most merciful Father, that it 
has pleased thee to regenerate this infant.'' " He 
then proceeds to prove that this regeneration is ante- 
cedent to baptism, and universal. And he instructs us 
so to construe his mention of " the regeneration of in- 
fants," in his Appeal (a work adopted in our course <>f 
ministerial study), Part V, Inference 7, as designating 
regeneration unconditional upon baptism, and of course 
as existing in the case of every living infant. So firm- 
ly convinced was Fletcher that Adamic depravity does 



Infant Salvation. 



323 



not preclude infant regeneration, that it was in a pow- 
erful work in favor of depravity that he maintained 
such regeneration. If this be a new development, it 
is by no means "a new doctrine.'" According to 
Fletcher's interpretation, indeed, our infant baptismal 
service teaches the same doctrine. Our baptismal 
Scripture lesson from Mark x, 13, etc., declaring "of 
such is the kingdom of heaven," teaches, in his view, 
that infants are truly born of the Spirit as ground of 
their now being baptismally " born of water." They 
are to receive the outward sign because they have re- 
ceived the inward grace. We say not that these teach- 
ings of Fletcher are an article of our Church faith; 
nor that they are true or false. We only say that 
they are found in one of the standards which has always 
been put by our Church into the hands of her young 
ministers; and such is even there affirmed to be the 
doctrine of our standing Ritual. If Fletcher's inter- 
pretations be true, we have been proclaiming living in- 
fant regeneration at every infant baptism from the very 
foundation of our Church. But this Arminian and 
Fletcheiian view is very different from her* Pelagian 
denial of a depravity by nature derived from Adam. 

Mr. Wesley's views of the baptismal Scripture lesson 
appear scarce different from Fletcher's. "The king- 
dom of heaven" there mentioned he held to be the 
." kingdom set up in the world " (see his comment on 
Mark x, 14, and Matt, xix, 14), that is, the regenerate 
earthly Church; he held that little children "have a 
right to enter" that kingdom or Church; and that 
"the members of the kingdom" "are such," that is, 
" natural " children, or " grown persons of a child-like 
spirit." That membership he interprets to be not con- 
tingent and prospective, but real and present. And 
yet he believed that no one can be within that kingdom 



324: Statements: Theological and Critical. 



who is not regenerate. (See his note on John iii, 5). 
We have then the syllogistic premises: All members 
of the kingdom of heaven are regenerate; children are 
such members ; and then what conclusion a logician 
like Mr. Wesley would draw we leave others to decide. 

In contradiction to Fletcher, Mr. Watson, beyond all 
question, held, 1. That infants are not justified or re- 
generate in immediate sequence to their personal exist- 
ence. 2. That infant regeneration is nevertheless a real- 
ity; and, 3. That its becoming actual is limited to dying 
infants, and, as we understand him, takes place just ante- 
cedently to their death. On what texts of Scripture 
this last limitation is founded we are not informed. 

Dr. Fisk's view appears in the following words: u Al- 
though all moral depravity, derived or contracted, is 
damning in its nature, still, by virtue of the atonement, 
the destructive effects of derived depravity are coun- 
teracted ; and guilt is not imputed, until, by a voluntary 
rejection of the Gospel remedy, man makes the deprav- 
ity of his nature the object of his own choice. Hence, 
although, abstractedly considered, this depravity is de- 
structive -to the possessors, yet through the grace of the 
Gospel all are born free from condemnation. So 
the Apostle Paul : ' As by the offense of one, judg- 
ment came upon all men to condemnation, so by the 
righteousness of one, the free gift came upon all men 
unto justification of life.' " — Calvinistic Controversy. 

Here we are told that all are born " free from con- 
demnation;" and this freedom from condemnation is 
identical with the "justification" named by St. Paul. 
And this freedom from condemnation or justification 
(not merely a title to contingent prospective justifica- 
tion), is at birth upon each living individual infant; and 
universal, being in spite of our depravity derived from 
the atonement. The infant does not wait for death before 



Infant Salvation. 



325 



he is justified. Death, actual or approaching, is no con- 
dition of salvation. Whether Dr. Fisk also believed in 
infant regeneration, or whether he believed that, in the 
case of infants, justification and regeneration could be 
separated, we know nothing in his writings to decide. 
During our ten years of personal intercourse with him 
we never heard him discuss the subject. 

In regard to Mr. Fletcher's doctrine of infant justifi- 
cation, we remark: 

1. No one affirms that the regeneration of an infant, 
as taught by Fletcher, is psychologically absurd, or con- 
trary to human or Christian consciousness. The doc- 
trine of infant regeneration, either unconditional or 
conditional upon baptism, is no new doctrine, but has 
been a dogma in all the great sections of the Church, 
whether Greek, Catholic, or Protestant. The regener- 
ation of the infant is nothing different in nature from 
that in the adult, except as modified by its subject; and 
the use of the term is in both cases equally proper, in- 
volving no innovation in theology of either thought or 
language. If an infant can be depraved it can also be 
undepraved; if it can be positively unregenerate it can 
also be regenerate. In the infant nature as truly as in 
the adult, there may exist all the potencies, predisposi- 
tions, and predeterminate tendencies, natural or gra- 
cious, for an actual though not responsible moral nature, 
good or bad.* 

* On this subject Dr. Olin says : "We have scriptural authority 
for affirming, that, in some instances at least, the Holy Spirit has im- 
pressed the characteristics of piety upon children in early infancy, 
and even from their birth. Such instances may be thought miracu- 
lous, but they prove none the less conclusively the possibility of di- 
vine operations upon children anterior to the development of reason. 
There is, at least, nothing in the nature of the case to exclude them. 
Again, we all believe that God's grace renews those infants who die 
and go to heaven before they know how to discern the right hand 



826 Statements : Theological and Critical. 



2. The doctrine of depravity is neither implicated in 
nor modified by the doctrine of infant regeneration, 
whether unconditional or conditioned by birth, baptism, 
or death, actual or approaching. In either case the de- 
pravity comes from Adam, is by nature, and is equally 
complete; and, in either case, regeneration comes from 
Christ and is by grace, being extra to and above nat- 
ure. The unborn John the Baptist was "filled with 
the Holy Ghost" (Luke i, 15), and "leaped" at the ap- 
proach of the mother of the unborn Saviour. And such 
cases at once explode the objection of the "manifest 
absurdity " of " regeneration between conception and 
birth." Nor is there any more absurdity in the infant 
being regenerated between conception and birth, than 
in his being depraved at conception or between concep- 
tion and birth. And this would seem to finish, too, all 
the argument about the absurdity of generation and 
regeneration being simultaneous. 

3. If Arminius, Wesley, Fletcher, and Fisk are right 
in their positions, then the Arminian doctrine of falling 
from grace must be true. And we see the reason why 
Calvinists must reject those positions unless they would 
become Arininians. All who become unregenerate, or 
unjustified, as Fletcher expresses it, have "sinned away 
the justification of infants." Or, as Fisk says, the 

from the left. This quite dissipates the philosophical objection ; there 
is no natural obstacle to the work of grace in a child. Indeed, when 
we recollect that conversion has quite as much to do with the heart 
as with the intellect, and that the affections and moral sentiments of 
children are developed, and may be variously acted upon and modified 
in their earliest years, and anterior to the development of the under- 
standing, it is not a little straDge that this difficulty should have arisen 
in thoughtful minds." 

And again; "God's grace does not, at least it does not, it .is said, 
ordinarily, operate before the mind is capable of exercising faith. 
This is far from self-evident." 



Infant Salvation. 



327 



"man makes the depravity of his nature the object of 
his choice," and not until then is '-sin imputed unto 
him." If there be those happy exceptions, who have 
evidently not " sinned away the justification of infants," 
Fletcher would doubtless have held them to be Chrio- 
tians, and at responsible age have admitted them to 
communion. And an Arminian, like Fletcher, would 
have no difficulty with our Lord's declaration to Nico- 
demus, "Except a man be born again," etc.; for he 
would understand that such words are addressed to all 
apostates, entirely irrespective of any past experience, 
whether of an infant or a previous adult generation. 

4. From this general apostasy it would arise that our 
authors describe our general depravity as men and as 
adults, without a slavish reference in every case to the 
exceptional point of infant justification. That transient 
seminal period is left out of account, and a depravity is 
attributed to men in the gross and the entirety, which 
is no more contradicted by infant than by adult regen- 
eration. No passage describing depravity in any of our 
authors is to be quoted as deciding his view of the 
infant's gracious state, unless the infant status is his 
proper subject. 

5. If infants are by the covenant virtual believers, we 
see full answer to the Baptist argument against infant 
baptism. " Believe and be baptized," quotes the Bap- 
tist; none but believers are to be baptized. By the 
covenant, Arminius and Fletcher could have replied, 
infants are, in the eye of the law, believers. Wesley, 
in his sermon On the Education of Children, describes 
mankind as natural-born atheists. They are so. Igno- 
rant infancy believes, by nature, neither in God nor in 
Christ. And yet, by the covenant, Arminius would tell 
us, they are believers both in God and Christ.- Does any 
man believe that Wesley in baptizing an infant held 



328 Statements : Theological and Critical. 



himself to be baptizing an atheist ? Atheists, he held, 
dying, go to hell. But here, forsooth, is a baptized, un- 
believing, unjustified, unregenerate atheist : baptized, 
because " of such is the kingdom of heaven ! " Fletcher 
would doubtless have said that the infant, though by nat- 
ure an atheist, is by grace a believer in God and Christ. 

We have not been arguing the truth of the doctrine 
of infant regeneration, in regard to which thoughtful 
men are indisposed to "dogmatize;" but analyzing the 
position of our doctrinal standards, and the relation of 
those positions to other points of Arminian theology. 
And we incline to conclude that, judged by those stand- 
ards, the dissidents from Fletcher have no claim to a 
credit for special orthodoxy. 

Infant Non-probation. 

In proof of "Hereditary Guilt," we are pointed to 
such passages as Matt, xxiii, 35, where our Lord says 
to the Jews of his day, " That upon you may come all 
the righteous blood shed upon the earth, from the blood 
of righteous Abel, etc. . . . All . . . shall come upon this 
generation." But this merely ancestral sin is accepted 
and ratified by "this generation;" and so voluntarily 
made their own " hereditary guilt." The whole previ- 
ous context narrates their own present enormous wick- 
edness, and declares that it is therefor that the accu- 
mulated consequences of past wickedness should come 
in temporal penalty upon them. And. this is, in fact, 
proof of our own doctrine. By uniformity of wickedness 
the whole national line had become as one guilty person, 
until the day of execution at the destruction of Jerusa- 
lem and the overthrow of the Jewish state. Our note on 
the passage says, " Though the temporal punishment be 
commensurate with the guilt of their whole history, not 
a man really suffers more than his own sins deserve ; " 



Infant Salvation. 



329 



and, we may add, not an infant whose death is not a 
translation into life. And " each man may repent, and 
be saved in the world to come." And then, verse 37, 
follow our Lord's plaintive words, " How often would I 
have gathered thy children, and ye would not!" It 
was their own sins that had made the national guilt 
their own. And thus it is that, according to the Deca- 
logue, God visits " the iniquities of the fathers upon 
the children ; " because the children, by a like wicked- 
ness, are alike guilty, and suffer really no more than 
their own deserts. And so Achan's children were put 
to death, not to punish them as guilty, but as a punish- 
ment to the father. And Levi paid tithes, being in the 
loins of Abraham, not from any guilt of his own, but 
by the natural fixing of his relative position in life by 
heredity. And be it specially noted that all these 
visitings of parental sins upon posterity belong wholly 
to the temporal, earthly, law of descent, and not to the 
system of eternal retribution. 

And perhaps these views may aid to solve, too, the 
problem of infant non-probation — the problem that 
induces Dr. Prentiss, in the Presbyterian Review, to 
argue against all probation, and Dr. Newman Smyth to 
demand a post-mortem probation for infants. In thus 
being blended into one, the two kingdoms— namely, the 
realm of man's animal nature and the realm of proba- 
tion and immortality — modify each other. The realm 
of nature secures bodily death, even of infants ; the 
realm of probation secures resurrection. In the former, 
the Divine Ruler exhibits the blended realm in its most 
benign aspect of non-probational, unconditioned grace 
through Christ ; in the latter, he manifests the proba- 
tional alternative aspects of conditional grace and just- 
ice. The fall is thus simply man's subjection to the 
law of all earthly races. With both vegetable and ani- 



330 Statements: Theological and Critical. 



mal progenies premature death is arrest of develop- 
ment. The infant oak, trampled as a shrub to death, 
can never shoot up its trunk, sweep the clouds with 
its top, and shake the tempests of centuries from its 
sides. The slain lion's whelp can never rouse the for- 
est with his roar. And so the dying infant immortal, 
though raised to perfect bliss, may never unfold the 
fullness of his probationary being. He can never ap- 
pear as the hardy moral warrior victorious through 
grace in the battle of life. He has been allowed only to 
be, and to suffer, but not to do. He maybe as an ever- 
blooming, ever-blissful flower in the garden of God, but 
not the stately tree. He would be living proof of the 
predominantly gracious nature of the probationary 
kingdom. Why should not both these aspects present 
themselves in the one blended realm ? And what need 
of the post-mortem probational appendix ? What ground 
for assuming full literal probation for all as an unfail- 
ing law ? Is not the appendix an awkward structural 
addition? Could not the end be better secured by 
postponing, in all cases, death to adult age ? 



CHRISTIAN PERFECTION. 

Regeneration and Entire Sanctification. 

By our physiological and psychological sensitiveness, 
we are susceptible to temptation and very liable to sin. 
No constituent part of our psychological or physical 
constitution is cast out or, in substance, changed in re- 
generation. It is the vitalizing influence, presence, and 
power of the Holy Spirit, obeyed and acted by our free 
agency, that constitutes our regeneration. Nor does 
the still-remaining presence of the above-named suscep- 



Christian Perfection. 



331 



tibilities and liabilities to sin in the least contradict 
the doctrine that our regeneration is of the whole man. 
The regenerative Spirit does pervade body, soul, and 
spirit. But here is a momentous distinction between 
the extent of the Spirit's presence and the intensity of 
its presence and power. This is the distinction some- 
times philosophically found between extension and in- 
tension. We tolerate the phrase "total depravity," 
because that depravity truly does pervade the total 
man; not because its degree and intensity in the whole 
man is total, so total that he is as bad as the devil ; bad 
as he can be; so bad that the most abandoned mature 
pirate is no more depraved than a modest young girl. 
"Totus vir depravatus, not totus vir depravatus totaliter." 
And so the regenerate spirit is entire in its extent 
through the whole man, but measured in its intensity 
of influence and power; so that the free will is able to 
yield to temptation. According to the fullness of the 
presence and influence of the Spirit obeyed by the 
man is his degree of spiritual power; that is, the en- 
tirety of his sanctification. When that Spirit's power 
and the man's concurrence are so entire that the man 
is able to, and actually does, reject all sin, and so does 
remain in the undiminished fullness of the divine ap- 
probation, unquestionably he is entirely sanctified. The 
love of God is in his heart, and his path is the path of 
the just shining to the perfect day. And this is the 
simple account of the difference between regeneration 
and entire sanctification, at which so many minds are 
perplexed. 

Grades of Depravity and Holiness. 

Had we been privileged to peruse Dr. Crane's bro- 
chure, Holiness the Birthright of All God^s Children, 
before publication, we should doubtless have endeav- 
ored to convince him that there is no such difference in 



332 Statements : Theological and Critical. 

his views as to require him to place them in so frank an 
antagonism to Mr. Wesley's. Mr. Wesley holds that 
regeneration is at first so incomplete that traces of de- 
pravity remain in the soul, as is evidenced by the "sins 
willfully committed " (according to our Twelfth Article) 
" after justification.'' Dr. Crane admits that " after jus- 
tification " there are " weak faith," "temptation," and 
" sin," but denies that their base is a " residue " of our 
natural pravity within us. This may seem to some a 
shadowy difference, but it really leads him to a brave 
contest with Mr. Wesley's sermon on Sin in Believers, 
which has been accepted as standard by our Methodism 
the world around. We think it must still remain 
standard. 

We venture the following statement. Mr. Wesley 
and Dr. Crane agree that, at justification, there is con- 
ferred a degree of "power" over sin and against temp- 
tation. Both would agree that according to the degree 
of that "power" is the degree of sanctification. In- 
deed, we think one of the best definitions of sanctifica- 
tion is: The power, through divine grace, more or less 
complete, and more or less permanent, so to resist temp- 
tation and avoid sin as to live in the fidlness of divine 
favor. Where the correlation between the inner state 
of the soul and temptation is such that there is no 
power to avoid sinning, "and that continually," the 
depravity is entire. Where, secondly, there is power 
through grace, by faith, largely but partially and pre- 
cariously to avoid sin, with usually but a dim sense of 
divine approval, then we should by parity infer that 
the pravity was not entire but partial. If it were the 
case of one who had been previously in the entirely 
depraved state, we should imagine that it was a trace 
of that previous entire state. And viewing this to be 
about the condition of the ordinary justified person, we 



Christian Perfection. 



383 



look upon this deficit of his spiritual power as a remains 
of his previous entire inability. Where, thirdly, the 
power is such as to enable one, with the exertion of 
unremittent care and energy, to maintain, with a clear 
and regular continuity, the avoidance of such sin as di- 
minishes the light of God's smile upon us, we might 
with trembling trust call that entire sanctification. 
Where, fourthly , such is the correlation between the 
state of the soul and temptation that the avoidance of 
sin is a matter of perfect normal and natural ease, and 
may be rationally predicted as forever and absolutely 
permanent (even though there is a free power for sin, 
and though sin be most abnormally the actual result), 
there is clearly no depravity. And this is Adamic per- 
fection. But it is quite irrelevant to quote Adam and 
Eve before the fall to illustrate either of the previous 
cases. Finally, where the soul is entirely removed 
from the sphere of sin, perfectly filled with God, and 
framed within a body incapable of sin, so that sin be- 
comes impossible, the holiness is finitely absolute. This 
last stage of complete, indefeasible bliss will be at the 
resurrection. It is that glorious day to which St. Paul, 
earnestly looking, beholds the whole creation groaning 
for the manifestation of the sons of God. Regenera- 
tion is, indeed, truly a specific term in theology, and 
yet it comes under the grand genus of the final renova- 
tion. Then, for the first moment, the impairment we, 
one and all, have derived from Adam and sin, shall be 
completely repaired. Hence, our regeneration here, as 
individuals, is but initial, as part of the entire regenera- 
tion completed at the resurrection. Let us not be im- 
patient because God is so slow as to leave an imperfect 
" residue" within us. "God is patient because God is 
eternal." 

We have above traced at least fioe degrees of spirit- 



334 Statements : Theological axd Critical. 

ual power over sin (which we hold, with Wesley, to be 
sanctification), and thereby demonstrated the difference 
between our initial sanctification and its full ultimate 
perfecting. 

These five degrees of spiritual power against all sin we 
may illustrate by the five following degrees of moral 
power against intemperance, though the number of the 
degrees may be increased by minuter division. There 
is, we may say: 1. The man to whom alcohol is so ut- 
terly repugnant that his stomach throws it off, and he 
cannot drink it. 2. The man who greatly dislikes it, 
but can swallow it as a repulsive medicine. 3. The 
man who neither likes nor dislikes it, and can with 
equal ease drink it or let it alone. 4. The man who 
likes it, and can scarce refrain from drinking. 5. The 
man whose will has lost all resisting power; like the 
man, once described by the late Sylvester Graham, 
whose will, when the glass was set before him, could no 
more stop from taking, than a steel trap could stop from 
springing; not even if he knew that death and damna- 
tion were the immediate sequents. And this last is 
parallel with the total depravity of our spiritual scale. 
Now, how figurative is the question, whether numbers 
2 and 3 have any intemperance in them ; as some breth- 
ren query and debate whether a justified man has any 
sin in him! All you can say is, that such is the state 
of the man's mind and body that he has just such and 
such a degree of like or dislike of the object. And so, 
by parity, you can say that a Christian has more or less 
power over sin. And here you have got to the bottom 
of the inquiry. How it is that a man's sensorial surface 
is impregnated with such a sensitivity that alcohol is 
exquisitely agreeable, or agreeable in one or another de- 
gree, science has never begun to guess; any more than 
it can tell why scratching the bottom of one's foot will 



Christian Perfection. 



335 



tickle and scratching the face will pain. We know 
that here is a man whose sensorium is delighted with, 
alcohol; is in a terrible state of pain, which we call 
craving, at its long absence; and whose will pounces 
upon it when it is at length within his reach. And 
that is the sum of the matter. Let our candid readers 
place these five degrees beside the five degrees of pow- 
er produced by the empowering Spirit, reversing the 
order, and we shall be disappointed if the whole mat- 
ter does not become tolerably clear. Only it must be 
remembered, as against Pelagianism, in sanctifica- 
tion the power is divinely bestowed, and not merely 
natural. 

To perceive the difference between justification and en- 
tire sanctification let us take another view. At justifica- 
tion, or pardon, God beholds the soul as being in Christ 
perfectly innocent, perfectly pure from the guilt of sin. 
In that sense he is, at that moment, perfectly holy. Then 
such measure of the Spirit is given as God pleases; and 
even the slightest measure of spiritual life thereby be- 
stowed is regeneration. Assuming, then, that the soul 
is, in the above sense, perfectly holy, is he possessed of 
such perfect power over the f uture commission of sin as 
to constitute entire sanctification f That is, does entire 
sanctification ever take place at justification? If such 
a case should be, it would be a rare exception. Expe- 
rience shows that such a power over and n gainst sin 
is the usual result both of growth and of fuller meas- 
ures of the Spirit, and "gift of power." And now, 
what is the measure of what can be called " entire sanc- 
tification ? " Our answer would be : Such a measure 
of power over sin as holds us, with more or less continu- 
ity, in that same perfect fullness of .divine approbation 
as rested upon us vnhen jusfificatio?i first pronounced us, 
through Christ, perfectly innocent of sin. Happy, tran- 



336 Statements : Theological and Ckitical. 



scendently happy, is the man with whom such fullness 
is permanent ! With others it may be for a season; 
with others, a vibrating experience; and rarer than is 
usually supposed is the case of its permanence. 

We think it accords with Wesleyan theology to say, 
that the amissibility of even the most entire sanctifi- 
cation in our probationary life is based in a " residue " 
of our hereditary moral debility. Just because it is 
part of the great racial impairment waiting the great 
racial repairment. And just because, also, it is such a 
correlation of the soul with temptation, belonging to 
our nature, inherited from the fall, as leaves us, as Mr. 
Wesley repeatedly states, inferior to Adamic perfec- 
tion. Whatever inferiority we possess below unfallen 
Adam must be part of that loss we have suffered from 
fallen Adam. 

Sanetification is, perhaps, less the taking away any 
thing from our inward nature than the bestowment of 
a repressive power over our inner sinward tendencies. 
On the rail-track the sprung iron sometimes turns up 
a dangerous elastic " snake-head," that, unless fast- 
ened down, will smash the train. The natural man's 
heart contains a circle of elastic " snake-heads," point- 
ing from circumference to center, that nothing but 
divine grace can press completely down. The Spirit 
of God, aiding our firm volition, applies a pressure that 
shuts them down more or less completely ; and accord- 
ing to the completeness of the shut-down is the en- 
tireness of the sanetification. That divine grace ever 
completely takes away the snake- heads, or even their 
elasticity, during probation, is more than we can affirm. 
Whatever be the conscious feeling of the professedly 
sanctified man, our impression is, that spectators often 
perceive the snake-head when he little thinks it. St. 
Paul found it necessary to keep his body under — that is, 



Christian Perfection. 



337 



to keep the snake-head repressed ; and it was that 
repression, not the removal, that constituted his sanc- 
tification. The un re moved snake-head is evidenced 
by the energy still required to keep it in repression; 
and apostasy discloses the snake-head present and 
elastic as ever. It is, perhaps, only in the sense that 
the complete repression of the snake-head would be 
its cessation as a snake-head, so that it is a snake-head 
no longer, that there may be said to be in sanctification 
a cessation of our hereditary pravity. 

What constitutes the difference between the sin of the 
unregenerate and the sin of the regenerate f We an- 
swer: the former is the hostile act of an enemy, the 
latter the offense of a child. For the former God has 
justice, for the latter correction. When faith is strong 
and fertile, that childship is manhood. When faith is 
"weak" and barren, the soul is dwarfed in moral man- 
hood and becomes a babe. When faith expires, the 
child of God becomes a child of the devil. In the 
heart of the regenerate, faith, however weak, is a deep, 
moral protest underlying the sin he commits; a poten- 
tial repentance, likely soon to manifest itself in action. 
The difference, therefore, between the sins of the unre- 
generate and regenerate is not intrinsic but relative; 
it arises from the different conditions of enemy and 
child. The denying the Christian's sins to be sins is 
a fatal procedure. Dr. Hodge charges an Antinomian 
tendency upon perfectionism, but carefully adds that it 
has no such effect among Methodists. Any inclination 
to deny sin and guilt in the believer would certainly 
introduce such tendency. We must beware how we 
sustain our regeneration or our sanctification, not by 
avoiding sin, but by whitewashing the sin we commit. 

Dr. Crane, like many others of the purest and holi- 
est men in our Church, has been impressed with 
22 



838 Statements : Theological and Critical. 



what seems to him a vast amount of both false show- 
iness and extravagance under the guise of sanctifica- 
tion, with which much of the present hour is disfigured, 
and he wished to furnish a conservative remedy. He 
attempted this, we think, on a mistaken basis, a plat- 
form outside the Wesleyan doctrine. He forgot that 
Wesleyanism furnishes not only the animating but the 
conservative element united in mutual countercheck. 
Its doctrines are beautifully symmetrical. As conserv- 
ative check, Wesley presents before us the absolute 
penalty of the divine law, damning us for. even the 
slightest so-called "infirmities." He presents the full 
interval between us and unfallen Adam in its ample 
breadth. And then, his pages of caution to the follow- 
ers of George Bell are providentially on record. These 
conservative forces, if brought out and emphasized, are 
ample and adequate to the purpose of blowing off all 
the froth and "fury signifying nothing" with which 
these errorists are trying to overlay the cause of the 
higher Christian life. 

Correctness ol our Definition of Entire Sanctification. 

Our definition of entire sanctification, as given above, 
being questioned, with a challenge to compare it with 
that of Wesley, we will place, them side by side. We 
are sure the reader will discern their oneness of ultimate 
essence under a variety of form: 



Our Definition. 
Such a measure of power over 
sin as holds us with more or less 
of continuity in that same perfect 
fullness of divine approbation as 
rested upon \ is when justification 
first pronounced us through Christ 
perfectly innocent of sin. 



Wesley's Definition. 
Sanctification in the proper 
sense is an instantaneous deliver- 
ance from all sin, and includes 
an instantaneous power, then 
given, always to cleave to God. 



Christian Perfection. 



339 



Both these definitions make the sanctified state con- 
sist of two things : First, " deliverance from sin " (by- 
perfect justification at first); second, "power," namely, 
to maintain that perfect "deliverance from sin." 

Both definitions make the sanctification proper consist 
in "power." Wesley says, "power always to cleave 
to God;" ours says, "power to avoid sin, so far as to 
retain the perfect divine approbation." Both express 
the same "power;" ours completely and fully, Wes- 
ley's briefly, and rather crudely, for a definition. Even 
the merely regenerate man has "power to cleave to 
God." Nay, an unregenerate theist does, as against 
atheism, exert "power to cleave to God." Wesley's 
words are, therefore, inexplicit and inadequate, not com- 
pletely expressing his own meaning. Taking, now, the 
previous point: Wesley says, " deliverance from sin," 
(that is, the guilt of sin, by justification); ours, too, 
makes the justification from sin the starting and meas- 
uring points. Both are, in brief, justification for past 
sin and power over and against future sin. Both imply 
that the complete justification at first, maintained by 
the divinely accepted avoidance in the future, is holi- 
ness. If a man is first cleared from all guilt, and 
then possesses and exerts the power of so far avoiding 
all sin as to stay as guiltless as at first, would he not be 
an evangelically holy man ? Would he not be both 
guiltless, and, measured by the Gospel standard, sin- 
less? 

It is said that "this is only a continuity of justifica- 
tion." Very well ; but the permanent continuity of 
absolute justification (which is guiltlessness, evangelical 
sinlessness), would be the highest sanctification. But, 
inasmuch as no man can possess a permanent continuity 
of absolute justification without gracious aid, so we de- 
fine Christian sanctification as the gracious power of 



340 Statements: Theological and Critical. 



maintaining a justification equivalent to that of our first 
pardon, which was absolute justification at that mo- 
ment. The justification is one thing, and the power is 
another thing. And the power, in both Wesley's defi- 
nition and ours, being exercised (and unless exercised it 
cannot exist), is the sanctification. The sanctification, 
by our definition, is absolute justification plus the povjer 
of maintaining its perfect continuity. That is S=J+P. 

To our definition it is further replied, " It is not, then, 
the fullness of the divine approbation bestowed when we 
cleanse ourseloes, etc., perfecting holiness" etc. That is, 
this " approbation " of our definition is only that at jus- 
tification, and not that higher approbation truly belong- 
ing to entire sanctification. But what our definition says 
is, that sanctification does retain that approbation gra- 
ciously bestowed at justification; it does not deny that 
over and above that approbation required by our defi- 
nition there may be actually bestowed at sanctification 
also a more abundant approbation than at justificntion, 
and a far more abounding assurance and joy ; an accom- 
paniment proper to be described in a full expatiation, 
but not properly to be included in a definition. God 
may truly approve and bless us at sanctification more 
abundantly, both because we have gained possession 
of the "power" and because we exercise it. Our 
definition mentions the moment of justification, not be- 
cause that time is an essential point, but because that 
moment furnishes the example of a perfect approba- 
tion; a good measure of the entireness of the sanctifica- 
tion, and so an exact definition of what the entire- 
ness is. 

Sanctification Does Not Destroy our Human Nature. 

We have compared the sinward tendencies in us to 
that elastic upspringing of the flat iron rail in use on 



Christian Perfection. 



341 



our earlier railways, technically called a "snake-head," 
and said that sanctification consists in the power con- 
ferred by the divine Spirit to lay the snake-head on 
the level track. To this it is replied : "Entire sanctifi- 
cation takes away our sinward tendencies. The old, 
bent, rusty, rotten rail of depravity, which puts up 
' snake-heads,' is removed, and the steel rail of purity, 
which has no snake-like capabilities, is substituted for 
it." But that, again, is anti-Wesleyanism, Calvinism, 
excluding the possibility of apostasy. For how can this 
"steel rail, which has no snake-like capabilities ," admit 
a lapse into the old depravity ? Does God, then, de- 
stroy the new steel rail, and create anew for the apostate 
the old rotten rail of depravity ? That would be mak- 
ing God the author of sin, and so would land the un- 
fortunate objector again in Calvinism. If the old man 
is utterly annihilated by sanctification and an immuta- 
ble new man created, where does the old man of the 
apostate come from ? Thus the Wesleyan-Arrainian 
doctrine of the possibility of falling from grace is com- 
pletely contradicted. 

Test this high-flown talk by facts of experience. 
Years ago a minister professing a high sanctification, as 
unquestionably genuine as any other case, suddenly fell 
into awful licentiousness, lost his ministerial status, and 
died some years afterward profoundly penitent. Now, 
how did his nature, physical and mental, in such an act, 
differ from that of an unsanctified man ? Were not his 
blood, brain, nervous system, sensations, etc., just like 
any other man's ? Were not his reasoning intellect, 
his inflammable passions, his sexual sensitiveness, his 
corporeal appetites, all the same ? The whole structure 
and substance of his physical system were the same; the 
whole structure and substance of his mental system were 
the same. He sinned, then, with the same personal 



342 



Statements : Theological axd Ceitical. 



system, and the same impulses that any unregenerate 
man would. What, then, is this " old rotten rail of 
depravity, which puts up snake-heads " and that has 
been all "removed?" If the railroad be, as we under- 
stand, the sensitive nature, and the snake-heads the 
sensitive impulses, they were all there, however closely 
laid upon the track, capable of up-springing, and had 
never been " removed," for it icas by and with them 
that this sanctified man sinned. And how is it that 
"Jesus strikes death into the sinful life?" Was there 
not a sad "life" in this sanctified man's "seat of sinful 
life ?" Did not the most heinous sin come from the liv- 
ing " seat of sinful life? " Now, let this learned objector 
understand that stirring metaphors like these will serve 
very well as emotional expressions; they are abundant- 
ly used in Scripture; but, like all metaphors, when you 
come to exact literal analysis, they muddle far more 
than they explain. And in Scripture exegesis it is one 
of the most important and difficult points to detect 
metaphor and obtain the bare and literal thought. All 
this sanctified man's sensitivities, which in themselves 
had the intrinsic strength and elasticity to spring up as 
lusts, were, through the aid of the empowering Spirit, 
held by his will under control, and kept in their proper 
and their rightful action, just as the iron elastic is kept 
in its place on the track from being a snake-head. 
The man, then, forgiven of his past sin, is perfectly 
right, all his nature being brought by the Spirit's pow- 
er into complete control, and harmonized with the law 
of Christ. He was, therefore, entirely sanctified. The 
sensitivities, thus held in their true and natural sym- 
metry, still had their true and natural strength, just as 
the fastened iron elastic had its natural spring. While 
thus held in place by gracious power they were not sin- 
ful lusts, just as the iron in its place is not a snake-head. 



Cheistiax Peefectiox. 



343 



The railroad is not torn up, the metal elastic, capable of 
rising into a snake-head, has not been destroyed ; but, 
all being held in its proper place and order, the elastic 
is no snake-head, and the rail-track, elastic and all, is 
a first-class, perfect rail-track. But let the man's free- 
will suspend or reverse its repressive action, and then 
let the blessed Spirit withdraw the repressive " power," 
and up springs the elastic into a snake-head ; and, 
alas, it proves a live one, and bites the man to death ! 
That is, let the watchful will suspend or reverse its re- 
pressive action, holding the sensitivities in their proper 
place; then will the Spirit withdraw the "power," and 
the hitherto pure sensitivities w T ill spring up into lusts, 
and lusts will bring forth death. This is the plain, lit- 
eral process, and he who understands this will have the 
key to the perplexities in which many minds are at this 
day involved. And nine tenths of all the difficulties 
arise from undertaking to explain with metaphors and 
other figures. 

And when Mr. ^Yesley takes a literal case and uses 
literal language, he accords precisely with these views. 
Thus he says: "A woman solicits me. Here is a temp- 
tation to lust. But in the instant I shrink back. And 
I feel no desire or lust at all; of which I can be as sure 
as that my hand is cold or hot." Here all the natural 
sexual sensitivities belonging toman are presupposed as 
still existing. They are neither "torn up," "removed," 
"cleansed away," nor substituted by an entire new set. 
They have all the same natural excitability to the ex- 
ternal object, the same correlation to the tempting thing. 
That is, the iron lies upon the track with all its inher- 
ent elasticity. But when the tempting object presents 
itself, the blended power of the divine and human spirit 
holds these springy sensitivities in repression. That is, 
the repressive power keeps the elastic iron lying on the 



34:4: Statements : Theological and Critical. 



track. Otherwise the sensitivity would spring up into 
lust and sin, as the elastic iron would spring up into a 
snake-head. And that is John Wesley's entire sancti- 
fication. 

The excessive use of metaphor in the discussion of this 
subject has, indeed, Mr. Wesley's sermon on Sin in Be- 
lievers as a remarkable precedent. That sermon is figure 
and symbol from end to end. His opponents, as stated 
by him, argue against him in figures, and he refutes them 
in figures; so that the whole discussion was a battle of 
symbols and emblems. If any acute and well-trained 
psychologist will take that sermon and translate it 
into precise literal language, he will find the argument 
valid, the doctrine sound, and the conclusion perhaps 
more clear. The very title, Sin in Believers, is image. 
It images a believer as a sort of ancient leather-bottle, 
with a certain bad substance called sin in it. Then 
this sin must be "emptied out;" the bottle must be 
"washed," "cleansed," "purified;" and it is a great 
question among our figure lovers whether it can be 
emptied, cleansed, purified, in part without being 
" emptied," etc., in whole. Now all we have done is 
to divest the subject of figures, and present 3Ir. Wes- 
ley's exact doctrine, translated into the terms of modern 
psychology. 

But these brethren make their powerful stand upon 
regeneration. And they quote a very vigorous figure 
from Toplady thus: "Regeneration, as Toplady says, is 
not ' the' whitewashing of an old rotten house, but the tak- 
ing it down and building a new one in its place — a tem- 
ple for the Holy Ghost.' " 

Now this figure of "the old rotten house" is, like 
the figure of the "old rotten railroad," very good Top- 
ladyan Calvinism. But, when the man apostatizes, does 
God build him a new " old rotten house ? " 



Christian Perfection. 



345 



The Jews, when they had converted and baptized a 
Gentile, called him regenerate. The temperance men, 
by parity with the Jews, may call a man who signs the 
pledge, with earnest purpose to keep it, regenerate. 
And when a man, with perfectly earnest purpose, re- 
pents and is pardoned, then the first element of the 
Spirit's empowering aid given him to stay pardoned 
and in God's favor is regeneration. His justification is 
at that first moment absolute. He is perfectly free from 
condemnation. His justification remains absolute until, 
by sins, he shades the divine countenance, yet loses not 
thereby necessarily and completely his regeneration. 
His justification is, then, qualified ; and yet, dying at 
that moment, he would be saved, though he would be, 
perhaps, among the lesser in the kingdom of heaven. 
But let the full sanctifying power of the Spirit come 
upon him, and he is not only restored to his absolute 
justification, but enabled, if he will, to maintain that 
absolute justification entire ; not, indeed, according to 
the Christless law, but according to the grace of God 
through Christ. And at his entire sanctification God 
may, additionally to the simple act of sanctifying, pour 
upon him new and richer effusions of love and blessed- 
ness than he ever before experienced, signalizing that 
experience as an event in his Christian life. And so 
the infant is, by the Spirit's power, enabled, if translated 
to a purer world, to be and act as pure as that world 
is pure. It will thus be seen that our whole sanctifi- 
cation is the gift of power • " power to cleave to God," 
and cleave away from transgressing his law. 

Abuse of Figurative Terms. 

From this our readers will see the literal truth of our 
statement, that sanctification is " less the taking away 
any thing than the bestowment of a repressive power 



846 Statements : Theological and Critical. 

over our inward tendencies." We do not say that the 
idea of taking away is excluded; but that the idea of 
bestowing is the predominant and literal, while the idea 
of taking away is the subordinate, inferential, and often 
metaphorical. When, for instance, a governor bestows 
pardon on a criminal, you can say, less properly, he 
takes away his guilt. And so of the sanctified man, 
as the Spirit enables him to live thus purely, you 
can say that "sin is all cast out," "evil tempers are 
abolished," lusts are wholly removed," "the roots 
of sin are plucked out," " our inbred corruption is 
ejected." 

These metaphors, like all metaphors, are literal un- 
truth, but they have legitimate place and use of rousing 
and inspiriting our feelings and action. Only let them 
keep their place, and not be used in the process of exact 
analysis of actual realities. When we read that we are 
"washed in the blood of the Lamb," do not imagine 
that we are actually plunged into a sheet-iron blood-vat 
and soaked and rubbed. Understand simply that we 
are pardoned through the atonement. And when we are 
assured with an air of proof, that " an immense amount 
is taken away when the blood of Christ cleanses us from 
all sin" we reply, that the simple fact expressed is, 
that a man is enabled by the Spirit's power, purchased 
by the atonement, to keep himself in perfect evangel- 
ical justification before God; and as sin thereby disap- 
pears you can figure it, if you please, as a cleansing 
away with a liquid. And so in the words of Wesley, 
"The moment a sinner is justified his heart is cleansed 
in a low degree, yet he has not a clean heart," truth is 
perfectly stated in figurative language. The literal fact 
is: When a man is justified that measure of the Spirit 
is given him that he can, in a measure, keep free from 
sin, but not that measure by which he can avoid all sin. 



Christian Perfection. 



3^7 



Thus Wesley states it figuratively, and we have stated 
it, exactly the same thing, literally. 

And so in regard to Wesley's definition of sanctifiea- 
tion; it may be that the first clause means not "the de- 
liverance from all sin" in its guilt by justification, but 
the deliverance from all actual sin. And then both 
propositions of his definition say the same thing, the 
former in a negative, the latter in a positive form. Just 
so one may say, "The sun disperses the shades of night 
and brings the day;" but then the latter clause fully 
expresses both; for the shades of night are but the ab- 
sence of day. " The fire gives a deliverance from all 
cold, and produces a perfect warmth," is but two ways 
of saying the same thing. Just so Mr. Wesley's defini- 
tion says the same thing twice. The deliverance from 
all sin, and the exerted power of avoiding all sin, are 
the same one thing. Wesley's definition says it twice, 
and ours says it only once. 

The Spirit does not, indeed, operate as a dry mechan- 
ical power upon the springs of the will. He enables our 
love to fix upon God and his law, and lights our love up 
to a living, ruling power, which the will obeys. And 
that love divides itself off into various specific forms of 
goodness, excluding (or, as some would say, cleansing 
away), their various reverse badnesses. Love distributes 
into charity, long-suffering, benevolence, meekness, mod- 
est profession, truth, etc. Then, as love of God's law, 
it assumes a sterner form and goes into active life. 
There it becomes conscientiousness, integrity in busi- 
ness, chastity, observance of law, voting for honest rul- 
ers, abstinence from proscribing a good brother for doc- 
trinal mistake, and fairness in theological discussion. 
Where these exist not, no profession of a man should 
induce you to believe he is entirely sanctified. Yet be 
not too severe with such a professor. Admit that this 



348 Statements : Theological and Critical. 



entireness is approximative, varying, or vibratory, with 
a great many exceptional unable to stand before God's 
absolute law, or you may be obliged to feel that he de- 
ceives himself. Generally, our observation is, that very 
modest profession is best for all. 

Liability to Apostasy from Entire Sanctification. 

That we inherit from the fall a liability to sin and apos- 
tasy from even our entire sanctification is clear from: 
1. The inferiority of our highest perfection to Adam, 
which must consist in a lesser power of resistance to 
temptation. 2. From the fact that whereas Adam could 
be saved by the Christless law of works, we, however 
sanctified, from constant transgressions against the holy 
law, need atonement, and these transgressions are un- 
questionably evidences of both moral debility and lia- 
bility to fall. 3. How human bodies, impaired by the 
fall, weaken our persevering power, appears from these 
words of Wesley: 

"But even these souls dwell in a shattered body, and 
are so pressed down thereby, that they cannot always ex- 
ert themselves as they would, by thinking, speaking, and 
acting precisely right. For want of better bodily or- 
gans they must at times think, speak, or act wrong; not, 
indeed, through a defect of love, but through a defect 
of knowledge. And while this is the case, notwithstand- 
ing that defect and its consequences, they fulfill the law 
of love. . . . Yet as, even in this case, there is not a 
full conformity to the perfect law, so the most perfect 
do, on this very account, need the blood of atonement, 
and may properly, for themselves as for their breth- 
ren, say, ' Forgive us our trespasses.' " — Works, vol. vi, 
p. 515. 

This being "pressed down" is plainly a pressure 
"down" into such sin as needs forgiveness; and so is in 



Cheisttan Perfection. 



349 



the direction of possible apostasy; for every sin is a 
tendency from conformity to God's law. 4. Wesley 
maintains that the most sanctified commit " infirmi- 
ties;" and surely these "infirmities" are "debility" 
(such as unfallen Adam, who kept the Christless law, 
had not) ; and undoubtedly if a sanctified man fall it is 
from this "infirmity" or debility, which we inherit, not 
from unfallen, but from fallen Adam. 5. The whole 
of Mr. Wesley's cautions and directions to the greatest 
professors are admonitions against falling through our 
"infirmities." They are cautious to "repress" such 
"snake-heads" as "Pride;" as "a dangerous mistake," 
" Enthusiasm," the leaving off " searching the Script- 
ures," " Antinomianism," "Indulgence," " Schism," etc. 
These cautions are greatly needed even now. 

Example of George Bell. 

George Bell was for awhile one of Mr. Wesley's most 
pious and useful ministers. But he ran into high exag- 
geration on the subject of sanctification. Supposing 
truly that nobody can be too holy, he caught the notion 
that no theory and no profession of holiness could be too 
high. Soon Wesley was not Wesleyan enough for him, 
and he denounced the grand common sense of that 
great man as "an enemy of the doctrine of holiness." 
His " high enthusiasm," as Wesley in his day called it — 
fanaticism, as we in our day call it — led the people 
into a wild religious delirium. Wesley was deserted, 
his London society largely broken off, and over the 
scene he had to begin to build anew. George Bell and 
his seceders went to ruin in due time. Mr. Wesley 
then saw that his own overstatements of sanctification 
had really commenced the mischief; and he proceeded, 
most wisely, to correct his own error. He published a 
tract intended for all Methodists inclined to Bellism, 



350 Statements : Theological and Critical. 



entitled, almost sarcastically, Cautions and Directions 
given to the Greatest Professors in the Methodist Soci- 
eties. This tract was afterward added to his previous 
manual, Plain Account of Christian Perfection, in or- 
der to modify the ultraizing influence of that manual as 
it previously stood. Still further, he appended to that 
manual some very significant notes, carefully and wisely 
lowering his own overstatements. With characteristic 
magnanimity and wisdom he left both his error and its 
correction on record for our ensample. It required 
some Christian humility for a man like him to append 
to his once jubilant language such notes as these: "This 
is too strong," "Far too strong," etc. To a penetrating 
eye it reveals the fact that Mr. Wesley himself, with no 
modern precedents to guide his course, came very near 
to swinging over into " enthusiasm." The state of the 
case as it now stands, is holy life and modest profession 
toith Wesley, against tall profession and "enthusiasm" 
with Bell. For a goodly body of pious people among 
us, Wesley, if alive, would emphasize his address to the 
Bellites in the closing part of his invaluable Plain 
Account. 

The longer and more extended our experience, the 
more we are impressed with the necessity of looking 
beyond lofty professions to attain true estimates of 
character. The great reason why this doctrine is so 
coldly, not to say skeptically, regarded by an immense 
majority of the Church, is the immense distance be- 
tween the professional and the visible sanctity. The 
process is, first, a theory empyrean in height; next, a 
profession as empyrean; next, an immense visible dis- 
tance between the empyrean and the professor's real 
altitude; and, last, a consequent reaction in the entire 
observant Church against the whole matter. 



ESCHATOLOGT. 



351 



ESCHATOLOGY. 
The Millennium through the Diffusion of the Gospel. 

The belief that the millennium is to be accomplished 
not by the spread of the Gospel through the agency of 
the Church, but by the sudden interposition of the visi- 
ble person of the Son of man, smiting down the wicked 
and placing the saints in resurrection, exerts a romantic 
fascination over some minds. It gives a relief at the 
contemplation of the triumphs of iniquity and infidelity. 
It works a sweet and solemn subjective piety in the 
soul. But it -is often adverse to the aggressive and 
campaigning spirit of our day. Our great modern 
Christian organizations and enterprises have been based 
upon faith in the world's conversion, and the belief 
that the burden of the w T ork is laid upon the Church. 
It would be a fine task for some Christian philosopher 
to analyze how much of the philanthropic spirit of the 
age springs from this hope. On the contrary, the be- 
liever in the premillennial advent points to the failure 
of many a Christian enterprise, with a dangerous spirit 
of triumph, in proof that there exists not in Christianity 
the elements of a world-conquering power. The evi- 
dences of Christianity are debatable, and fail to con- 
vince many a fair and powerful mind. Time is attenu- 
ating their force. Science is in arms against the Bible. 
Iniquity is on the increase as population grows dense, 
and advancing science and civilization do but perfect 
the methods of wickedness and open new inventions of 
sin. What, then, can we do but withdraw our own 
souls from the evil that is in the world, and sweetly sigh 
and pray for the advent of the great Restorer? 

And yet the outlook is that Christianity w^ill become 
the religion of the world. Not only are antichristianities 



352 Statements : Theological and Critical. 



fading away, but antichristian races are dying out. 
And is there not an infinite reserve of power in the di- 
vine Spirit when he shall please to come forth in power? 
May not science and the Bible soon be brought to har- 
mony ? May not Satan be bound by a divine hand, and 
so the adverse temper of the world be reversed ? May 
not the minds and hearts of men cease to be blind to 
the sublimity of God and the glory of a glorious eter- 
nity, so that religion shall harmonize with the noblest 
and sweetest emotions of men ? When progressive 
culture shall rightly attune the human faculties, religion 
will become the central harmonizer of the soul and of 
the institutions of men. And thus in the final blend of 
human development and divine influence do we recog- 
nize the hope of the latter-day glory. In the midst 
of all adverse omens the eye of our faith looks to a 
blessed future for our world in its march to a per- 
fected Christian civilization. 

Turning to the pages of the Bible, it is to be readily 
granted that, as read by some of the noblest Christian 
scholars, all the hope of a better state lies beyond the 
advent. The world is waning into ruin, inevitable but 
for the sudden rescue of the hand of Christ. Biblical 
scholars like Hengstenberg, Meyer, and Liineman main- 
tain it in Germany. Dr. Schaff's edition of Lange's 
Bibel-werlt is on that side. In England a body of zeal- 
ous students of prophecy enthusiastically maintain the 
theory. And yet so powerfully is the spirit of our 
Christian age embarked in Christian enterprise in be- 
half of the " world's conversion " that premillennial- 
ism stays a feeble specialty. 

While numerous volumes have appeared on the pre- 
millennial side, the ordinary view now held by the 
Church has had scarce a single full and formal state- 
ment meeting the argument in its varied modern forms. 



ESCHATOLOGY. 



353 



Jonathan Edwards, and Dr. Bellamy, of New England, 
both published admirable treatises on the subject, and 
established the views of New England Calvinism. On 
the other side, Dr. Breckenridge published an able es- 
say, charging that the doctrine of the pre-advent mil- 
lennium is destroying Calvinism. Calvinism teaches 
the predestinated limitation" of the elect; while our 
millennialism has a universality about it that is eating 
out the vitals of predestinarian particularism. 

The second advent is the terminus of human proba- 
tion and the commencement of retribution. It is the 
transition point for our race and world from time to 
eternity. All the parts of God's earthly scheme con- 
verge to this focus. The Church, the completed elect, 
then, is presented as a pure and perfect bride to her 
groom. All the wicked shall then be punished with 
everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord. 
All the agencies and means of grace, the day of grace, 
the baptism, the Lord's Supper, the commission to dis- 
ciple all nations, look to that advent as their end. The 
intercession of Christ at the right hand of God ceases 
when he descends from the highest heavens to the throne 
of earthly judgment. With this clear view we have a 
complete whole, a perfect unbroken picture of the 
scheme of God. 

The true evangelical theory regards the preached. 
Gospel as an indispensable instrumentality to induce 
repentance on a general scale among heathen nations. 
Here we argue the importance of missionary effort, and 
suggest the following points: 1. Millions who now re- 
ject the Gospel in heathen lands would lie Christians if 
they had the full blaze of Gospel truth and the full 
power of Christian education upon them. They have 
light enough now to save them; enough to condemn 
them for rejection. And yet a larger amount would 
23 



354 Statements: Theological and Critical. 



save them. 2. Millions are now so ignorant as to be 
barely responsible. They can never be happy, but they 
will not be deeply miserable; but with the full Gospel 
they would attain eternal life. 3. The conversion of 
heathendom would react blessedly upon Christendom. 
Infidelity and unchristian secularism would cease. A 
stronger faith, a higher style of piety would arise. 
None would remain unconverted. And as all would 
then be Christendom, the millennial glory would be 
truly as intensive as extensive. 4. This millennium 
(predicted Rev. xx), we hold to be a prophetic year-day 
period. It is the long day of the Christian dispensa- 
tion of which we have thus far had the dawn and are 
yet in its gray twilight. Blessed Saviour, what will be 
its noontide ! 

Premillennialism. 

The theory of the pre-millennialists is based upon a 
most mistaken interpretation of the 19th and 20th chap- 
ters of Revelation. Their mistakes are three. First, 
they identify the judicial advent of Matt, xxv, with the 
descent and going forth of Christ as "the Word of 
God," in Rev. xix, marching as a conqueror and sub- 
duing the nations to his triumphal sway, fulfilling the 
mission of Psalm ii. Their second mistake is in con- 
founding the life of the souls of Rev. xx, 4 with that 
of bodies. Why cannot these boasting literalists allow 
souls to be literal souls f John in his Gospel does most 
explicitly maintain that there is a glorified life of the 
soul — the vita celestis — above not only its unconscious 
existence, but above its conscious life, and contrasted 
with the death of the disembodied soul of the damned. 
This same John does in his Gospel (v, 25-29), distin- 
guish the first and second resurrections to be successive- 
ly the resurrection of the soul and the resurrection of 
the body. And of this first resurrection of souls, de- 



EsCH ATOLOGY. 



355 



scribed in his Gospel, exalted to its glorified state, does 
the same John catch a glorious pictorial glimpse in his 
Apocalypse. He lifts up his eyes into the high heaven- 
ly world, and beholds the souls of the triumphant mar- 
tyrs and confessors enthroned with Christ himself in 
spiritual authority over the living nations of this world. 
Their thrones are in paradise, their sway is on earth. 
This picture has for us a double aspect. First, in its 
earthward aspect it stands as a symbol of the triumph 
of truth and righteousness. It stands in precise con- 
trast with the souls of the martyred in Rev. vi, 9-1 i, 
whose condition symbolizes the suppression of religion 
and truth in the world. In the one case they lie 
under the altar; in the other they are exalted upon 
thrones. But let our literalizing brethren note that in 
both cases, first, it is souls and not bodies that ave seen 
with the spirit's eye; showing that the apostle, by the 
word souls, means what he bays; and, second, that the 
state of these souls represents the state of Christ's 
blessed religion on earth. Second, this scene in its ce- 
lestial aspect gives us a specimen of the disembodied 
Church, ''the spirits of just men made perfect," in its 
glorified state with Christ. The second death has no 
power over them; for though still detained in the in- 
termediate state, they are waiting for the consumma- 
tion of their embodied perfection, when the whole elect 
of God shall be gathered in at the universal resurrec- 
tion of the body at the judgment scene of Rev. xx, 11, 
identical with Matt. xxv. This i< perfectly consistent 
with verse 5: the rest of the dead lived not again. The 
word again, in the English, is spurious. They lived 
not the glorious life of the soul, like the enthroned 
spirits — they lived not the life of the body; they live 
neither life until the second resurrection. Then they 
will live the life of the body and die the second death. 



356 Statements : Theological and Critical. 



The third mistake confounds a corporeal earthly king- 
dom with the glorified reign of the blessed spu-its with 
Christ in paradise over the sanctified earth, which will 
last a period symbolically designated as a thousand 
years. Thereafter the literal Antichrist (perhaps Satan 
incarnate, the devilish antithesis of Christ incarnate), of 
whom this same John tells us there are many lesser 
antichrist types in the world (1 John ii, 18), will come 
forth in deceiving power. Upon this last great apos- 
tasy the judgment will come like a thief in the night. 

The Thousand Years' Reign. 

As we are here still in the land of symbol, there is 
ample reason for applying the symbolic interpretation 
to this number. We have the number of universality, 
ten, raised to a cube, and producing, on the year-day 
principle, 360,000 years. The 1260 years of antichristic 
rule dwindle thereby to an insignificant extent in com- 
parison with the earthly reign of Christ. Glasgow well 
says, "Against the hypothesis of the contracted millen- 
nium there lies this startling objection: that it assigns 
to antichrist a more extended reign than to Christ. 
But, if the reign of Jesus be 360,000 years, and the end 
of antichrist or heathenism be speedily approaching, 
their duration is of no moment, being at most, about 
7,000 out of 360,000, or one five-hundredth part." \Ye 
are then only in the morning dawn of human history. 
Progress is the law, not only in nature and in history, 
but in the Messianic kingdom. It is not the few only 
that are finally saved. Entirely correct is the inference 
drawn from the doctrine of the millennium by Dr. Bell- 
amy, that the number of the lost in comparison to the 
saved may finally be as the number of malefactors now 
hung to the rest of society. See our work on T/ieWill, 
p. 359. 



ESCHATOLOGY. 



357 



Alf ord, on the passage, in insisting that this resurrec- 
tion of souls is a bodily resurrection, makes two points. 
1. If the first resurrection is "spiritual," so must be the 
second. To which we answer, If the first is not a 
" spiritual " resurrection, it certainly is a so?^-resurrec- 
tion; and a sow?-resurrection is not a body- resurrection. 
It does not follow that if a sow^-resurrection is spirit- 
ual, therefore a body-resurrection must, also, be spirit- 
ual. Professed " literalists " must render souls literally, 
and not figuratively, as bodies. 2. " Those who lived 
next to the apostles," says Afford, " and the whole 
Church for 300 years understood them in the plain, lit- 
eral sense ; " that is, forsooth, understood souls to mean 
bodies ! And that is a very queer " literal sense ! " 
This argument, based on the authority of the post- 
apostolic Church, comes with a bad grace from Alford, 
who persistently maintains in his Commentary, that the 
apostles themselves, even in their inspired writings, 
made the sad mistake of expecting the second advent 
to take place in their own day. And we call the atten- 
tion of our readers to this special point : That this very 
mistake of expecting the advent in their own day is 
identical with the mistake of placing the advent before the 
millennium. Many of "those who lived next the apos- 
tles " did make this mistake. Bringing the advent into 
their own day, they, of course, thereby cut off the mil- 
lennium, and placed it beyond the advent, and hence 
arose the errors of ancient Chiliasm, or premillennial- 
ism. This error was not held by "the whole Church 
for 300 years;" Imt, probably, by a decided majority 
of the post-apostolic Church. See the whole question 
of ancient Chiliasm discussed in our article on " Millen- 
nial Traditions," in the Methodist Quarterly Review for 
July, 1843. 

In his commentary on the Apocalypse, Mr. Glasgow 



358 Statements: Theological and Ceitical. 



has some ingenious methods of disproving the danger 
of millennial over-population. The fear of some is, 
that in 360,000 years of peace and prosperity the earth 
would be over-stocked with inhabitants. Glasgow first 
quotes many beautiful texts to prove the future in- 
, creased fertility of the earth. "The wilderness shall 
be a fruitful field." "I will plant in the wilderness 
the shittah-tree, the myrtle, and the oil-tree." "He 
will make her wilderness like Eden, and her deserts 
like the garden of the Lord." "Break forth into joy, 
ye waste places." "The wilderness and the solitary 
place shall be glad for them, and the desert shall rejoice 
and blossom as the rose." 

The mountains, deserts, and morasses, may be, he 
thinks, rendered a fertile plain, and the earth become 
a garden by geological changes, by a better distribu- 
tion of waters, and a diffusion, truly possible, of warmth 
over the Arctic regions. Nay, there are supposable 
methods by which the orb of the earth may be enlarged 
and furnish a larger area of life. In all which he pro- 
fessedly and carefully states what may, and, for aught 
science can show, can be; not what certainly will be. 
The latest conclusion of science seems to be that the 
area of land is continually gaining upon the ocean. 

But the most valid solution of this difficulty lies in 
w r hat are now the known laws of population. In the 
animal creation it is found largely, that loiv life is enor- 
mously prolific, and high life chary of over-population. 
The fishes spawn and the insects breed in trillions, while 
the lion and elephant are generating a score. So, also, 
among mankind the poor, ignorant, and miserable are 
prolific, while the higher classes, the rich, the aristo- 
cratic, and the intellectually and morally cultured class- 
es tend to sterility. The nobility of England would 
die out were it not replenished from the commons. 



ESCHATOLOGY. 



359 



People who have few resources for enjoyment fall back 
upon the animal and domestic gratifications w T ithin 
their reach. As the higher faculties find full play in a 
variety of directions, these enjoyments are often de- 
serted. As the passions of mankind become regulated, 
fecundity becomes moderate, and a perfectly balanced 
race would never over-populate the earth. 

Genealogy of Premillennialism. 

The notion that the final thousand years of the world 
are to be preceded by the renovation and righteous resur- 
rection^ wrenched from its associate accompaniments is 
the supposed stronghold in tradition of Chiiiasm. And 
this doctrine is one of the most palpable plagiarisms 
of Kabbinism from Zoroastrianism. The Persian my- 
thology taught the age of Adam would last 7,000 years. 
This is the great week of the Persian Simurgh. The 
Sadder, attributed to Zoroaster himself, says: "In our 
[Magian] religion, it is held for certain that God spake 
thus to Zoroaster: 'I created thee in the middle of the 
world's course; namely, from the age of Keiomaras to 
thine age are three thousand years; and from thine to 
the resurrection three thousand more? 

These six thousand years terminate with the resur- 
rection. The Jews at Babylon learned the doctrine 
from the Persians. To prove the foreign origin of this 
idea, it is only necessary to mention that it is a perfect- 
ly isolated notion, of which the Old Testament writers 
and the inspired age are perfectly clear; no way inter- 
laced with their system, but floating in the later post- 
captivitatem traditions. And this was the prevalent 
form of Judaism in the time of our Saviour. The New 
Testament abounds with proofs that the doctrine which 
required that the Messiah, having appeared in the clouds, 
should establish his glorified kingdom, and rule for the 



360 Statements : Theological and Critical. 

last great mundane period over the renovated world, 
cleared of the slaughtered nations, was the prevalent 
doctrine of Palestine. When the humble appearance 
and death of Christ had disappointed that expectation 
in the breasts of thousands predisposed to be his fol- 
lowers, the next demand would be, that his speedy sec- 
ond advent should, even in their own day (for proph- 
ecy and public expectation had designated that as the 
destined period), establish the true Messianic dispensa- 
tion and kingdom — the glorified resurrection millen- 
nium. 

The following from Barnabas exhibits the artificial 
process by which a foreign notion is superimposed upon 
the Old Testament system, and then imported, without 
a pretense of New Testament authority, into the Chris- 
tian circle of tenets: "Consider, my children, what that 
signifies: 'He finished them in six days.' The mean- 
ing is this: that in six thousand years the Lord will 
bring all things to an end ; for with him one day is a 
thousand years, as himself testifieth, saying, 'Behold 
this day shall be as a thousand years ; ' therefore, chil- 
dren, in six days (that is, six thousand years), shall all 
things be accomplished. And what is that he saith, 
* He resteth the seventh day ? ' He meaneth that when 
his Son shall come and abolish the wicked one, and 
judge the ungodly, and change the sun and moon and 
stars, then he shall gloriously rest on the seventh day. 
Behold, he will then truly sanctify it with blessed rest, 
when we have received the righteous promise — when 
iniquity shall be no more, all things being renewed by 
the Lord." 

Irenaeus also says, " The Lord will come from heaven 
with clouds. ... he will introduce the times of his 
righteous reign, that is, the rest, the seventh day sanc- 
tified." 



ESCHATOLOGY. 



361 



Surely no stronger testimony than these extracts fur- 
nish can be needed to prove the identity of Christian 
Chiliasm with the Magian and rabbinical great mun- 
dane week. And but a very few words are necessary 
to identify both these notions with that great blunder, 
we may say the great blunder of the primitive 
Church, the dogma that the second advent was to take 
place in their own day. 

The great blunder, then, we repeat, which prevailed 
but too extensively in the Church of the second century, 
was this — that the coming of Christ to dissolve the world 
vms to take place in their own day. We do not think 
that Gibbon is correct in considering this error as in 
any way founded upon the twenty-fourth chapter of 
Matthew, or upon any other part of the New Testa- 
ment. It took its origin, as the extract from Barnabas 
shows, from the Judaic notion, that the commencement 
of the great closing sabbatic thousand years, to be ush- 
ered in with a renovation of the world and the resurrec- 
tion, and forming the Messianic dispensation, was pro- 
phetically and chronologically at hand. And how stu- 
pendous, in point of fact, was this error ! What a 
blank did it make of future prophecy! It annihilated 
about the whole Christian dispensation. The Apoca- 
lypse, which is now viewed as a map of events of, at 
any rate, near two thousand years of terrene Christian 
history, was to them a scribble of senseless reveries. 
Placing the second advent in their own day did, in the 
same act, prove their utter ignorance of the great page 
of prophetic events before them, and cut off the millen- 
nium from the train of terrene things, and drift it off 
into the regions of spiritual romance. It proved, at 
once, that on whatever other point of prophecy or doc- 
trine their antiquity showed them infallibly "right" in 
regard to the real, great, final, mundane events they were 



362 



Statements : Theological axd Critical. 



"adulterate." If arbiters of all other truths, upon these 
points, they are, by demonstration, as worthless as the 
sheerest self-convieted ignorance can make them. 

The Second Advent. 

1. It is plain, from their own account, that not only 
the apostles, but our Lord himself professedly knew not 
the day or the hour of his second advent. Mark xiii, 32. 
The times and the seasons the Father has reserved in his 
own power. Acts i, 7. If then the apostles expressly 
intimate, as they do, that upon this subject no revela- 
tion is made to them, their ignorance or their error upon 
the subject could be no impeachment of their inspira- 
tion or authority upon any other point. 2. With re- 
gard to those passages which speak of the judgment as 
an impending event, St. Peter, in the third chapter of 
his second epistle, expressly furnishes the inspired solu- 
tion. Scoffers, he says, should come in the last days 
and raise this very problem, that his coming does not 
according to verbal promise immediate!// occur. "But," 
says St. Peter, in reply to this very difficulty, "beloved, be 
not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the 
Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one 
day. The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as 
some men count slackness. . . . But the day of the Lord 
will come as a thief in the night ; in the which the heav- 
ens shall pass away with a great noise," etc. Here it is 
plain that Peter recognizes the difficulty arising from 
the terms of immediacy with which the judgment-day 
is predicted, and furnishes the rule of interpretation. 
It is the language of the eternal God, and must be 
interpreted by the measure of his eternity. Language 
that implies the delay of a few days' may thus designate 
a period of thousands of years. It is the mysterious 
language of the Father, who reserves the times and sea- 



ESCHATOLOGY. 



363 



sons in his own power, revealing them neither to his 
angels nor even to the humanity of his Son. 

And now the question may well arise, Why has in- 
spiration thus used phrases of such nearness to desig- 
nate an event which was to be, as near two thousand 
years' experience has proved, so distant? Or, to ex- 
press the thought in higher terms, Why has a divine 
arithmetic been thus used to express such a distance 
to human minds? Our reply would be this: The Spir- 
it's purpose is, to preserve in our minds an impressive 
conception of its nearness in spite of its distance. The 
divine intention is, to prevent our banishing it from 
our thoughts on account of its far futurity. In its mo- 
mentousness to us it is nigh at hand, and time is no 
rightful factor in our calculations. Nay, the very 
greatness of its distance, far millenniums, perhaps, 
hence, demands that thought and language should bring 
it near. Sensible time is very relative. To us in the 
intervening spirit-world millenniums may pass with in- 
conceivable rapidity. There ever is to us but a step> 
as it were, to the judgment-day. (See our note on Matt, 
xxv, 6.) Hence, Scripture uniformly points us, with 
Warning, not to the day of death, but to the resur- 
rection and the judgment-seat of Christ. 

Again, in John xxi, 22, Jesus says of the apostle John: 
"If I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to 
thee ? " From that expression, St. John tells us, a ru- 
mor was current among the brethren that he should not 
die. Now what "coming" was it here specified? We 
answer, it could not be the establishment of Christian- 
ity ; for living until this coming specified implied per- 
petual exemption from death. Nor could it be Christ's 
coming to each man at death; for it implied that St. 
John, who should meet it, would not die. But it must 
be a second corning which introduced the eternal state ; 



S6i Statements : Theological and Critical. 

so that he who lived unto it would never die. It is also 
carious to remark, that St. John is inspiredly noncom- 
mittal as to the meaning of the Saviour's words. He 
repeats them verbatim, but declines all attempt at inter- 
pretation. This is a unique proof, that an inspired 
apostle was professedly ignorant as to the approach of 
the second advent in his day. Finally, the current say- 
ing among the brethren that that apostle should not die, 
because he should tarry till Christ comes, clearly implied 
in his case a supernatural perpetuity of life. Hence the 
apostles could not very definitely have expected Christ's 
coming during their own life. They did not themselves 
expect to live until that event. It required a supernat- 
ural protraction of life to reach that event. 

Resurrection of the Body. 

Xot a few thinkers at the present day identify death 
and resurrection with the successional waste and repair 
of our bodies by which our corporeal life is perpetuated. 
Particles in infinitesimal detail are displaced and re- 
placed by their minute successors, until an entire change 
is made, and yet the organism is historically kept going, 
and is called the same. And hence it was lately said, in 
a theological journal, that there need not be a particle 
of the dying body in the body of the resurrection. But 
all that is confounding facts of very different nature. 
That great break-up of the body at death, specially ap- 
pointed by divine authority, by which all corporeal con- 
tinuity is destroyed, is in no way analogous to that stream 
of molecular conduction by which corporeal continuity 
has been preserved. The two facts are, indeed, in mo- 
mentous contrast. The one is the assimilative work of 
the present and active life-power, transmitting its vital- 
izing and organizing energies by physical contact from 
particle to particle; the latter is the catastrophe of the 



ESCHATOLOGY. 



365 



sudden withdrawal of the entire life-power, and aban- 
donment of the organism to total disintegration and in- 
dividualization of ultimate particles. Now, in order to 
a continuity which can constitute a resurrection of the 
same body, the life-power must go back to that aggre- 
gate of particles, and reorganize them into a new cor- 
poreity. It must go, like a divine voice, to the " graves;" 
it must waken the truly "dead;" it must quicken the 
" mortal bodies ; " in short, it must effect a renewed 
continuity of the once living and dying body. This is 
altogether a different process from a construction from 
a new material — a creation. Every so-called " theory 
of the resurrection" which denies this molecular iden- 
tity involves a misnomer; being truly a "theory" op- 
posed to the " resurrection," and a denial of its reality. 
This is not " a theory of the resurrection," but the res- 
urrection itself. 

Dr. Wythe, being both a theologian and physiologist 
possesses advantages for skillfully handling the points 
of contact between religion and science. In his The 
Argument of Science and Revelation, the closing, and 
perhaps the best, chapter is on The Resurrection. We 
have first a short running sketch of the history of the 
doctrine, in which it appears beyond question that the 
reanimation of the body that dies is, and ever has been, 
the doctrine of the universal Church; opposed, espe- 
cially, by the over-spiritualistic Gnostic heresy, but sel- 
dom questioned by any author or party of undisputed 
orthodoxy in the Church. He reviews some of the the- 
ories touching the body to be raised. The rabbis solved 
the difficulty by supposing that there is an indestructi- 
ble bone in the body called Luz, which is the key- 
stone of the new body; hut modern anatomy has never 
been able to discover this incombustible vertebra in the 
human skeleton. On this important point Dr. Wythe 



366 Statements: Theological and Critical. 



adduces a new and decisive physiological fact which 
will, we think, hereafter take a permanent place in the 
defense of the Scripture doctrine of the resurrection. 
We quote his words: "Much of the matter connected 
with our bodies during life is doubtless foreign, and not 
essential to their identity. Nine tenths of the human 
body consists of water — as has been shown by the 
weight of a corpse which had been desiccated in an 
oven — and of the remaining tenth part much is material 
in a state of decay, having been used by the vital proc- 
esses, and now effete, or being cast off. So that but a 
very small proportion of the matter of our bodies can 
really be said to be our own. 

" We have seen that of the total amount of material 
associated with our bodies, physiology shows a very 
small part only to be essential to their integrity.* That 
matter only which is in a nascent condition, or which is 
being applied lo vital use, can be said to belong to our 
bodies. Supposing this small part to be indestructible, 
many of the objections to a resurrection drawn from 
the nourishment of other organized bodies will be re- 
moved, for both animals and vegetables are built up 
from the decomposition of other beings." — Pp. 258-260. 

* Dr. Beale, a most eminent English authority in histology, snys: 
" Some years ago I obtained evidence which convinced me that the 
substance of the bodies of all things living was composed of matter in 
two states; and I showed that the truly vital phenomena, nutrition, 
growth, and multiplication, were manifested by one of the two kinds of 
matter, while the other was the seat of physical and chemical changes 
only. From observation I was led to conclude that, of any living 
thing but a part of the matter of which it was .constituted was really 
living at any moment. In the case of adult forms of the higher ani- 
mals and man, indeed, only a very small portion of the total quantity 
of their body- matter is alive at any perod of existence." — Life The- 
ories: Their Influence upon Religious Thought. By Lionel S. Beale, 
M.D., F.R.S., etc. 



ESCHATOLOGY. 



367 



When the foreign elements are thus eliminated, and 
the true body remains alone, it is thereby reduced to 
one tenth of its apparent magnitude. But a still fur- 
ther reduction ensues, we may add, from the abolition 
of the alimentary and generative parts of the earthly 
human system, as both reason and the New Testament 
suggest. But while the material parts of the body are 
thus unchanged, and become the substance of the new 
body, the organism passes through a reorganizing and 
glorifying " change." The same in material, it is new 
in arrangements, properties, and capabilities. If we 
desire to know what these newnesses are, the sacred 
text gives us significant hints when we are told that 
there will be a " spiritual body," and that the body will 
be angel-like. 

By the body's becoming a "spiritual body " we un- 
derstand that it will be so subtilized, so adjusted to the 
pure spirit, and so subjected in every part and particle 
to the volition and power of the spirit, that while spirit 
becomes, so to speak, more substantiated, the personal 
unit of the two natures possesses all the capabilities 
that our thought usually attributes to the pure spirit. 
By volition it passes with lightning rapidity through 
nameless distance. It clairvoyantly sees, at volition, 
through a finite immensity. By volition it transfers it- 
self to any shape, and invests itself with a countless va- 
riety of properties and phenomenal presentations. It 
can become as the dark rolling cloud, the flashing light- 
ning, the solid rock. And yet it will have a normal 
figure and face, which will at once be the true expression 
of its essential nature (far more truly than human phys- 
iognomy now manifests the character), and will reveal 
to the intuition of the fellow-celestials the particular 
personality and perhaps the entire past history of the 
individual. When asked, Will the glorified bodies have 



368 Statements: Theological and Critical. 



teeth? we reply, If they please; and eat with them, 
too, as the angels did who visited Abraham. If asked, 
Will they have hair? we reply, Yes, if they please; and 
" shining raiment," too, as the two angels did before the 
apostles at the ascension. Nothing is more clear, we 
think, than that varying phenomenal form and proper- 
ties are more or less at tlie command both of the pure 
spirit, and of the unit of spirit and spiritual body. 

Bishop Butler has finely shown that the resurrection, 
though supernatural to our own earthly system, may 
be natural within a wider system. The law by which 
the corporeity returns to its soul may belong to a more 
comprehensive system of laws, which, like a broader 
circle, incloses the lesser circle in which we are placed. 
If we could only have, not a little narrow Huxleyan 
earthty science, but the broad science that could take 
in the laws of the vast universe, which are truly the 
volitions of God, we should see that the soul re-invests 
itself with the drapery of its former body by as real 
laws, and under as genuine a science, as the first organ- 
ism itself was shaped by the wonderful "plastic power." 

Anastasis and Egersis. 

Dr. Brown quotes from Richard "Winter Hamilton 
a disquisition upon the difference between anastasis and 
egersis, the two Greek words by which resurrection is 
expres-ed in the New Testament, which indicates that 
both of these gentlemen were better theologians than 
exegetes. Hamilton tells us that anastasis means "the 
reinstatement of the entire humanity of the individual 
in his future existence," that it does not usually refer 
to the body, and that it expresses not so much the act 
of rising again as the resurrection state. The noun 
egersis, with its verb form, expresses the simple act ; 
and he refers to a list of texts as corroborating this 



ESCHATOLOGY. 



369 



interpretation. Sow, in our view, this is a most er- 
roneous piece of philology. The comparison of the two 
words is this: 1. Anastasis signifies, intransitively, an 
uprising from a previous lower state of the same sub- 
ject. Egersis signifies, transitively, a raising of an ob- 
ject by some agent. It is only in its passive form as 
a verb, is raised, that it attains nearly the sense of 
rising • but even then the implication of the action of 
a causative agent is seldom or never quite lost ; or in 
its middle form, when its meaning is a raising of 'one 's 
self. 2. Xeither anastasis nor egersis explicitly express- 
es the risen state, or permanent condition resultant from 
the rising or raising. Both express simply and explic- 
itly the act alone ; but both do occasion the- idea of the 
sequent state by the mind's supplying the implication 
that after the rising the risen state is permanent. But 
neither word ever entirely loses its primary designa- 
tion of the act. Thus the passive form of egersis is 
repeatedly translated is risen, as Matt, xxvii, 64, and 
• xxviir, 6, 7 ; or am risen, xxvi, 32 ; where, the rising be- 
ing explicitly expressed, the permanent risen state is 
implied. A large share of the instances of egersis, as 
well as of anastasis, are of this character. 3. Both are 
normally used of the resurrection act of the body; 
that is, of the actual rising or raising of the corporeal 
frame from its former lower state, the subject being 
the same in its previous fallen and its subsequent risen 
state. 

The most curious part of the matter is, that these 
two writers construct this cumbrous pseudo-criticism to 
take away the idea of bodily resurrection from 1 Cor. 
xv, 12-19, where it does incontestably exist, since the 
reference there is to Christ's own bodily resurrection. 
These gentlemen plainly misunderstand the apostle's 
reasoning, and endeavor to correct misunderstanding by 
24 



370 Statements : Theological and Ckitical. 



misconstruction. The apostle's reasoning is this: It is 
dangerous for some of you to say there is no bodily 
resurrection ; for if there be no bodily resurrection 
Christ has not risen; and if Christ has not [bodily] risen, 
the foundation of the Christian faith is destroyed, and 
all our Christian hopes are a dream. We who hoped 
for justification, resurrection, and eternal salvation 
through him, are in our sins ; and even those who 
have died in Christ have gone to the perdition of un- 
justified sinners. They have gone to that perdition, 
whatever, in this wreck of Christianity, it may truly be; 
whether the Gehenna or the annihilation taught by 
the Jews, or the Tartarus of the pagan poets. And 
in this whole argument, the apostle has no occasion to 
affirm or deny the immortality of the soul, or even the 
possible resurrection of the body without Christ. What 
he does affirm is, that to deny the resurrection of the 
body is to destroy the foundation of Christianity, and 
thereby all hope of pardon and eternal life through 
Christ. 

Dr. Brown is, in our estimation, to be numbered 
among those who say "there is no resurrection;" for 
his resurrection is not a re-rising of the same body, but 
the substitution of a new one by a positive new crea- 
tion. He asserts the real resurrection to be " demon- 
strably impossible," but does not give us the process by 
which the impossibility is demonstrated. For a. most 
satisfactory solution of all these impossibilities, we re- 
fer to Dr. Mattison's able work on the Resurrection; 

When the soul appears before the judgment-seat of 
Christ, it must come furnished with an organized mate- 
rial body. Whence is the substance of that body de- 
rived ? From what part of the universe are the parti- 
cles gathered to form in concretion around the naked 
spirit? We answer, they may just as well be the par- 



ESCHATOLOGY. 



371 



tides composing the body that died as any other. It is 
just as easy to Omnipotence. If they are not the same 
substance, then we have a fresh formation, a new crea- 
tion, a substitution, and not a resurrection, and the doc- 
trine of the resurrection is denied. And all the subter- 
fuges and writhing inventions to substitute something 
else besides the once existing body — some germ, some 
Swedenborgian phantasm, some outline sketch of a body 
contained in our present living body — are simply diffi- 
cult efforts to remove difficulties in the actual doctrine 
of the resurrection which do not exist. That doctrine 
is contradicted by nothing in physics or metaphysics. 
So long as the doctrine of the indestructibility of mat- 
ter — or, if you please, of " the persistence of force " — is 
true, so long the identity of matter through all ages is 
real, the identity of the body, consisting of sameness of 
substance, is a possibility, and, if declared by revelation, 
is a truth. 

Dorner's Resurrection, a Germination. 

What can be more fantastic than the following pro- 
nunciamento of Dorner, denying the resurrection of 
Christ, and substituting a transmigration ? " Christ 
cannot have again assumed and transformed.' his body 
in the resurrection, but it must be held that he utterly 
laid aside and left in the grave his material body in 
prospect of his heavenly life." Christ, then, must have 
had,, at the moment of his emergence from the tomb, 
two bodies. What a " find " it would have been for 
the Jews could they have laid hands on the abandoned 
body! What became of it? It had no resurrection, 
and must have putrefied, and is now dispersed to the 
elements ! " The mortal," then, did not " put on im- 
mortality." It disintegrated. The dead did not rise, 
for the spiritual body never was dead. The vile body 
was not changed into a. glorious body ; but the vile 



372 Statements : Theological axd Critical. 

body went into deeper vileness, and a glorious body 
was, as Dorner says, "generated by Christ's ethical 
process " — if any body knows what that means. And 
then, what a sharp deception Jesus played upon his 
disciples Avhen he showed spurious wounds in his spir- 
itual body to make them believe the falsehood that his 
present body was identical with his crucified body ! 
The cheated apostles were permanently deceived, for 
they always maintained that Christ's crucified body 
came to life, and the fraud was perpetuated in the 
Apostles' Creed in the words " I believe in the resur- 
rection of the flesh." * All this offensive blasphemy 
Dorner authenticates in order to evade the simple fact 
that Christ's real body might as truly rise into a glori- 
ous resurrection as it once rose into a glorious trans- 
figuration on the Mount. For this denial of Christ's resur- 
rection he gives no reason, scientific, theological, bibli- 
cal, or metaphysical, but enunciates it as pure dictum. 

Of the Church doctrine of the resurrection he, nev- 
ertheless, gives a true and fair statement. " Many 
teachers of the ancient Church, like Justin Martyr and 
Tertullian, suppose a complete identity of the resur- 
rection body with the earthly one, inclusive of all the 
faults of the latter, which Christ will rectify at his 
second advent. A more spiritual theory is maintained, 
especially by Origen and his school, who even regard 
the present body as an evil and a hinderance to perfec- 
tion. But since Augustine's day an intermediate view 
between the materialistic and spiritual has prevailed, 
and was taken over into the Evangelical Church. Ac- 
cording to it the resurrection body has indeed an iden- 
tity of substance with the earthly body, but not with 
the form. The latter will rather be a glorified one." 

* So read the Latin aod Greek forms, as did the English to the 
time of Henry VIII.— Eds. 



ESCHATOLOGY. 



373 



But, distorting the doctrine of the Church, Dorner 
substitutes a germination in the place of a general resur- 
rection. His excuse for this is the apostle's illustrating 
the resurrection by the case of the seed, which grows 
up not a "seed" again, but "grain." Plainly, however, 
the apostle is not there describing the secret unde- 
ground process by which the resurrection is wrought. 
He does not mean that the body germinates like a seed 
in the grave. He is only arguing optically of what is 
seen above ground ; that, as a humble seed buried 
springs up in renewed beauty, so the b >dy buried 
springs up in strange glory. To make the apostle 
describe the subsoil process is to bring him into scien- 
tific 'error, for the seed does not literally " die." If, 
indeed, netc matter is added to the resurrection body, 
as Dorner seems to think, that new matter is certainly 
no part of the resurrection. For the resurrection is a 
resurrection of the dead, and that supplement was no 
part of the dead organism. As Chrysostom says, "That 
rose which fell," but the addendum neither fell nor rose. 
That re-lives which dies, but this foreign element never 
died, so far as this antithesis is concerned. 

And here we may, by the way, note that the late Dr. 
Summers remarked, that it is unnecessary to suppose in 
the resurrection the rising of the same corporeal sub- 
stance; for the resurrection may be analogous to the 
new bodies that come into existence successively in the 
growth of our life. There are, it is sometimes said, 
several bodies in the life-history of every mature man. 
But such a statement is scientific error. There is not 
a succession of complete separate bodies, like a row of 
finished statues, in a man's career. Each successive 
corporeal mass is formed, not in distinct completeness, 
but by the gradual accretion of new particles into the 
old organism. The new body does not instantly expel 



374: Statements : Theological and Ceitical. 

the old, and rush into its place a new formation. But 
the resurrection-change takes place in "the twinkling 
of an eye." And so, as the resurrection is not a sub- 
stitution, nor a metempsychosis, nor a germination, 
neither is it a growth. It is a resurrection, sui generis, 
and nothing else. New to most of our readers is also 
Dorner's conception, enounced without proof-text or 
logical argument by pure dictum, that all dead corpo- 
reities are solved into a general reservoir, " like an 
ocean," and each soul at the resurrection appropriates 
from the common stock a quantum sufficit for itself. 

Cooke's Resurrection a Substitution. 

One spurious reconciliation of science with Scripture, 
by Professor J. P. Cooke, we must reject. He makes 
science accord with the doctrine of the resurrection of 
the body by really expunging that resurrection from 
the Scriptures, and substituting a something else which 
is not a resurrection. Surely the creating and interpo- 
lating a new body in place of our mortal and dying 
body is not a resurrection of the dying body. And, 
really, so far from his successfully refuting the doc- 
trine of a true resurrection, we can find in the pro- 
fessor's own beautiful words the most striking scien- 
tific illustration of our doctrine. Says he, "Are you 
aware that the brilliant gem you prize so highly [the 
diamond] is the same element as these black coals ? 
The diamond is simply crystallized carbon." Now our 
mortal bodies are as the charcoal, and our resurrection 
bodies are as the diamonds. A charcoal could be trans- 
formed, particle for particle, by mere rearrangement into 
a diamond. So a dead human body could be divinely 
transformed, particle for particle, by mere rearrange- 
ment into a glorified body. In the transformation of the 
charcoal to the diamond, the diamond is the same with 



ESCHATOLOGY. 



375 



the charcoal in substance; it is different in properties 
and powers. So in the resurrection the glorified body 
is the same in substance as the dead body; it is differ- 
ent in properties and powers. It is alter et idem. 

Our professor then goes on to unfold that wonderful 
" allotropism " so-called ; wonderful to even scientific 
men ; by which the same substance or aggregate of 
particles undergoes, by a change of arrangement, a new 
set of properties. His unfoldings are all to our point. 
Carbon may be either charcoal, graphite, or diamond. 
Our bodily resurrection similarly is simply an " allot- 
ropism." At his transfiguration the body of Jesus 
underwent an allotropic glorifying change. It was the 
same in substance in that glorification as it was in its 
normal state. It was alter et idem. The dead body of 
our Lord underwent a similar allotropic change. The 
material frame put on immortality and ascended, a 
glorified body, to the right hand of God. Nor should 
a writer who so splendidly portrays the glorious possi- 
bilities of matter as our author stumble at even this 
apotheosis of the God-man's body. 

The professor holds the resurrection to be contradic- 
tion to the scientific fact that our bodies are changed 
in substance at least once a year. This year's body is 
entirely new; similar in form but different in substance 
from last year's body. But the successional changes 
in the body do not affect the question so long as we 
admit the great principle of the indestructibility of 
matter, and understand that it is the frame which dies 
that rises again. And here again we find, not contra- 
diction, but illustration. Just as this year's body takes 
the last year's body and carries it into a formal con- 
tinuance, so the resurrection goes to the body that has 
died, takes up its particles, and carries it into a glorified 
continuance. There is corporeal continuance in both 



376 Statements : Theological and Ceitical. 



cases ; continuance by identity of form and variation 
of substance in one case ; continuance by identity of 
substance and variance of properties in the other case. 
In both cases we have a continuance with a variation; 
an idem and an alter. There is, indeed, in the allotro- 
pism of the resurrection a long break; an interval in 
which the charcoal is scattered to the four winds and 
h-,is to be re-collected when the diamond change is 
ready. That interval is a violent, and. as we may say, 
an unnatural one. It was introduced by sin. In his 
higher unfallen nature man would have passed, un- 
changed in substance, into his transcendent state. He 
might have grown into the new resurrection state by 
a gradual " allotropism," and that allotropism, like the 
allotropism so well described in nature by our author, 
would have been a change not of corporeal particles, 
but of corporeal properties. And so at the coming of 
Christ the living will undergo a change; not merely by 
a substitution of new bodies, but by putting upon their 
"mortal" the properties of "immortality," It will be 
what our professor well understands as an "allotropie'' 
change. 

We have elsewhere (on page 3 71 and in our note 
to 1 Cor. xv, 41), put a question which we here re- 
peat; repeat with emphasis, because it has never been 
answered, and, we believe, has no answer. When 
the undressed spirit is to appear before the judgment- 
seat of Christ, all, even our professor, admit that it 
is to be investe 1 with a body. From the surrouud- 
ing universe the elements must collect in corporeal 
accretion around that spirit. Why, then, under the 
power of God, may it not be the elements of that frame 
which was dissolved at death, tchich shall again form 
around that same spirit, just as easily as any other 
elements? Our professor has not in his lectures un- 



ESCHATOLOGY. 



377 



folded the wonders of magnetism. Had be done so, 
we should have thence drawn another illustration of 
the molecular identity of the body at death and the 
body of the resurrection. Between the soul and its 
forsaken molecules there may exist a quasi -magnetic 
attraction. At the sublime instant every individual 
particle, whether at the farthest pole, or at the antip- 
odes, feels the irresistible draw, and in an eye-twinkle 
assumes its proper place in the new incorporation. And, 
in obedience to this final attraction, every particle of 
one body at death may be secured or withdrawn from 
incorporation with another dying body; so that all res- 
urrection bodies shall be separate and individual. This 
spiritual magnetic attraction is not more wonderful 
than gravitation. It is not more wonderful than the 
various specific cohesions that hold each body in or- 
ganic unity; not half so wonderful as those powerful, 
infinitely varied, elective affinities so vividly described 
in these lectures. 

Our professor excels in quotation of beautifying texts, 
but not in his application of proof-texts. Thus he says, 
"the apostle declares that this body is not the body that 
shall be." Certainly not, we reply, for it now "is" 
charcoal, and it "shall be" diamond. "Flesh and blood 
cannot inherit the kingdom of God ; " no more than 
charcoal can adorn the queen's coronet. " This mortal 
must put on immortality ; " but, according to the pro- 
fessor, "this mortal" is to be scattered through the 
universe and abandoned to eternal dissolution. It is 
never to have resurrection. The "immortality" is to 
be worn by a newly created body that never was "mor- 
tal." But he omits one text often quoted by deniers 
of the resurrection : " God giveth it a body as hath 
pleased him;" namely, it "hath pleased" God to "give 
it " a diamond " body," instead of a charcoal one. 



378 Statements : Theological and Critical. 



The Unseen Universe. 

The authors of the work thus entitled move a pro- 
found question : What becomes of the stupendous 
amount of force expended, as the latest science tells, 
and poured into an unknown immensity by the material 
universe?" The entire system of worlds is growing 
weaker as it grows older. Its fires are going out. Al- 
ready our satellite, the moon, once a whirling fire-ball, 
is a cold, dark block. The planets, satellites of the sun, 
are losing their heat; and the sun, satellite of some oth- 
er center, is wasting in space its vital fire. Meanwhle 
their orbits are narrowing, and they are all, slowly but 
surely, concentrating into one final tireless, rayless, life- 
less, hopeless dead-head. Whither goes the universal 
force that is thus separating from universal matter ? 
Our authors answer: These forces go into immensity in 
order to crystallize into an " Unseen Universe," which 
is that future state to which our faith is looking, includ- 
ing that " new heavens and new earth wherein dwelleth 
righteousness, 1 ' of which an apostle utters " promise." 
And, negatively at least, theology may appropriate this * 
key-thought to answer science when it asks, Where is 
this heaven about which you talk and sing so sonor- 
ously f 

If heat be merely what Professor Tyndall calls it, "a 
mode of motion," then a mere mode of moving in space, 
with nothing to move, w r ould not form a very tangible 
world. If, however, heat be a real entity, a self-sub- 
sistent force, then we have no difficulty in conceiving a 
purely dynamical system. If force is self-subsistent 
and "space-filling," then it may be made compacted 
and solid, and fulfill, all the offices of matter ; and a 
world so constructed would seem to be a veritable solid 
world. 



ESCHATOLOGY. 



379 



"What, tlien, becomes of the force-deserted dead-head ? 
With this question the writers seem a little perplexed. 
If they accepted this dynamical theory in regard to our 
mundane matter, it would be easy to conceive that the 
dead head, composed of pure force, should dissolve, dis- 
perse, and go into other forms and uses. But this the- 
ory they reject. Yet we might here suggest that, as 
the authors believe in the existence of an Evil and a 
Gehenna even in the new eternal future, this dead-head 
may be the Gehenna they require. Inasmuch as the 
entire present worlds of matter, the whole present ma- 
terial universe, exhibit all the defects and scars which 
theology has hiiherto viewed as the results of sin, so all 
may be under the doom of sin. Why, then, may they 
not forever stand, the dead-head monument of the evil 
of sin ; the eternal monitor of the criminality of rebell- 
ion by God's free creatures against holiness and God ? 
The Bible abounds in dim reminiscences of sin before 
man; of the fall of a more ancient order of beings, of 
whom the Satan, who instigated the sin of Eden, is a 
specimen. What the relation of the universal corrup- 
tion of the material system, extending through the sys- 
tem as far as our knowledge can reach, may be to this 
earlier sin, we cannot fully know. But the sentence of 
destruction for sin may rest upon the whole. And so 
the final mas^ of earthly and stellar matter, including 
the resurrection bodies of the finally-lost men, may con- 
centrate into one awful, eternal Gehenna. It may, in- 
deed, be objected that by that theory the flames of " the 
lake of fire " are finally extinguishable. The reply is, 
that if fire is one of the images of the final penalty, 
" outer darkness " is another. Each may be, in its own 
way and time, true. 

Our authors seem to imagine that the doctrine of a 
corporeal resurrection is irreconcilable with the nature 



380 Statements : Theological and Critical. 



of the future unseen world framed from force. On that 
doctrine they attempt to fasten burlesque, in a style 
that indicates that witticism and sarcasm are not their 
gift. If we adopt the theory of the dynamical nature 
of matter, namely, that even our "hard matter" is 
fixed or "frozen" force, our bodies and the future 
world would then be con-substantial ; for both would 
be dynamical. But, even on their a iew, that matter is 
a unique "stuff," our theory (which is also Paul's the- 
ory), of a material body suffused with spirit, supposes a 
body able to tread on the solid pavement of the New 
Jerusalem, if the force be compact enough. Nay, it 
w T ould be what thi* theory demands. Our etherealized 
material body would then contain in its material ele- 
ments a wonderful remembrance of a former world; 
an eternal memento that the man was once a sinner in 
a sinful earth. It would be a perpetual mark of man 
as a special order among the celestials, identifying him 
on one side with the lost material universe, and on the 
other with the glorified Man who wrought redemption. 

Our authors fully appreciate that the human race 
must, according to the latest science, disappear from 
our globe long before its heat has departed. And 
thence we venture to reason from a first miraculous 
advent to a second. By some method, perhaps a mi- 
raculous separation of the oxygen from the nitrogen of 
the atmosphere and its use as an instrument of com- 
bustion, our planet is to undergo a fiery disintegration. 
Conflagrations of stellar bodies are no unknown event 
in the astronomic system. Even if they were, the 
ready instrumentalities are at hand upon our globe. A 
dissolution of the earth by fire is an article of anc ; ent 
faith; generally including its renewal and beatification. 
But. it is remarkable that the two passages of the New 
Testament which describe that event, avoid declaring 



ESCHATOLOGY. 



381 



that the new heavens and the new earth are identical 
with the present globe. Both seem to intimate a new 
sphere of existence. 2 Pet. iii, 13; Rev. xx, 11; xxi, 1. 

By the Scripture language concerning the threefold 
biblical heavens, we find that there are, first, an atmos- 
pheric heaven, the visible space below the stars; a star- 
ry heaven, including the entire stellar universe ; but 
where is the third heaven, where God resides? Dr. 
Dawson suggests, the pure immensity of space that sur- 
rounds the stellar universe, assuming the stellar uni- 
verse to be finite. And, according to the authors of 
The Unseen Universe, the energies of our present earth 
are thitherward flowing to crystallize into a new heaven 
and a new earth, and thither the resurrection will bear 
the spiritual bodies of the glorified. Or, alternatively, 
Dr. Dawson thinks the highest heaven may be the cen- 
tral sun, around which all other suns and systems re- 
volve their orbits. Dr. Dawson seems to prefer the 
latter. But the latest dogma of astronomy is, that all 
the systems are both losing their heat and narrowing 
their orbits, destined in the far future to fall into 
the most central sun, all in due time to become a 
dead and frozen char. Unfortunately, this last theory 
makes the highest heaven coincide with this last central 
dreariness. 

Let us then take the alternative view. The essential 
God encompasses the stellar system with its highest 
heaven, yet extending his omnipresence, and his voli- 
tions in the shape of laws, to the stellar center. All, 
then, seems in place. From the earth as our abode, 
the atmospheric space, the starry regions, and the cir- 
cumambient immensity, are the first, second, and third 
heavens. The anthropocentralism of biblical theology, 
so much reprehended by Dr. Draper, then stands justi- 
fied. But Dr. Draper will then ask in the name of sci- 



382 Statements: Theological axd Ceitical. 



ence, Where are Hades and Gehenna? The reply must 
then be, as heaven is up so hell must be dozen. And 
this points us to the earth, and brings us back to the 
doctrine of the old Puritan theol-'gian, Dr. Ridgeley, 
that the "lake of fire" is the earth in conflagration. 
We can, then, surrender the earth to the fearful destiny 
pronounced by modern astronomy upon it. And this 
accords with the ordinary phrase of Scripture that finds 
the infemum in the subterranean, as it finds heaven far 
above us. 

Oar Knowledge of Immortality. 

When Bishop Foster said that we do not know that 
our life survives the grave, that is, as the connection 
shows, with "absolute knowledge," excluding debate or 
doubt, the shallow newspaper paragraphists took it, iso- 
lated the phrase from its connections, and bruited it 
about that Bishop Foster said that " we do not know 
that we are immortal." And this unwisdom, we are 
ashamed to say, has been repeated in some of our own 
religious papers. Now, why is not the same fuss made 
because Professor Bowue tells us, in the Methodist Quar- 
terly, that we cannot know, with absolute knowledge, 
that a personal God exists ? His fundamental maxim 
is, that our proof of God is not the demonstration of a 
theorem, but the solution of a problem; to which prob- 
lem the other solutions are " possible." The fact is, our 
word know and the psychological states it designates 
involve an immense number of gradations of certitude. 
Reduced to its ultimate, I only know my own present 
conscious thought. I know that I think. Every thing 
else is inference of more or less certitude. And it is to 
very various degrees of this certitude that, with more or 
less absoluteness, we apply the word know. For, in 
fact, we apply the word whenever the evidence is so far 
clear that ice feel content to repose the mind on the as- 



ESCHATOLOGY. 



383 



sumption of its certainty, and base our conduct in life 
upon it. Absolutely we do not know the sun will rise 
to-morrow; and vet practically we assume to know it, 
rest our whole system of life upon it, and with verbal 
truth always say we know it. Do we know our own 
immortality with the same absoluteness as we know the 
sun will rise to-morrow ? Do we know with an equal 
certitude that the Bible is true ? Do we know absolute- 
ly that our faculties do not deceive us? Yet we do 
again say we know a thing merely because we were told 
so by a neighbor. We knoio a thing because Bancroft's 
history narrates it. John Stuart Mill says we know 
that women are capable of military exploits because the 
examples of Deborah and Joan of Arc prove it. And so 
a physician may know a disease by its symptoms, and a 
geologist knows the whole structure of an animal by a 
single bone. All natural science is based upon such a 
know. And all geometry is based upon an assumption 
— the assumption that our faculties do not deceive us. 
And so, passing through our Christian experience, and- 
basing ourselves on the great probability of the divine 
truth of the Scriptures, we do justly say with calm re- 
liance, " We know that we have passed from death unto 
life;" "We know God;" "We know that when he 
shall appear we shall be like him." All of which is no 
contradiction to Bishop Foster's dictum, speaking from 
the stand-point by him occupied, that we do not know 
our own immortality with an absolute knowledge, so 
but that discussion, reply to objections, clearing of dif- 
ficulties, and massing of arguments, are necessary. Why 
need we discuss and try to prove what every body ab- 
solutely knows ? The very fact that people listened to 
his proofs, and read his book, is proof that they do not 
pretend to know it beyond all debate. And the bishop 
very sensibly assigns the fact that we do not absolutely 



384 Statements : Theological and Critical. 



know, as the reason why he is about to furnish the 
proofs of its reliable certainty. 

Our immortal life, its present undeveloped state yet 
glorious assurance, its advancing stages, its dread alter- 
natives, its transcendent consummation, are the main 
theme of his Beyond the Grave. Its leading point is 
that the spirit is the man. We are truly spirits enshrined 
in similar transparent vehicles. 

We cannot consider the removal of the objection to 
man's immortality derived from brute soul satisfactory. 
It is, indeed, embarrassing for us that, after having 
builded a magnificent argument for man's immortality 
derived from the indestructibility of the thinking prin- 
ciple, we are suddenly brought to a stand with "But do 
not brutes think? And are they not then immortal?" 
The answer given is that God himself is the thinking 
soul within the brute, and the brute perishes forever 
by God's withdrawal. Are, then, the perceptions, the 
lively emotions, the energetic volitions of your dog, all 
the perceptions, the emotions, the volitions of God him- 
self in the dog ? That is a very expensive solution. It 
is very nearly the solution of Descartes, who held ani- 
mals to be automata ; but centuries have failed to ren- 
der it acceptable to the public mind. We will venture 
another solution or two. 

First. "Man is not immortal because he is a thinking 
substance, for brutes think; but because he is by God 
placed in the conditions for immortality. A lamp will 
burn forever if the conditions of carbon and oxygen are 
properly supplied. An animal would be immortal if 
placed by God in the conditions for its immortality." 
Now how easy the thought that paradise is rich with 
the atmosphere of life, the water of life, the tree of 
life ! What better solution do we want ? The tree of 
life in the original Eden was the preserver of immortal- 



ESCHATOLOGY. 



385 



ity, and man was removed from it to prevent his living 
forever; but in the new Eden it is restored. In other 
words, man, unlike the brute, is immortal by being 
placed in the conditions of immortality. 

Next, how beautifully coincides with this view St. 
Paul's trinality of man as body, soul, and spirit. Man 
shares the animal body and animal soul with the lower 
animals. That much he is an animal. Had he nothing 
more, there would be nothing to indicate but that he 
would, like the animals, perish forever. But we all 
know that over and above the set of mere animal facul- 
ties man has an overlay of spirit, in which reside his con- 
ceptions of infinity, eternity, immortality, with sublime 
premonitions that he is candidate for the high region to 
which these belong. He is as clearly destined for the 
region and atmosphere of immortality as the live chick 
in the shell is destined for the light of the sun. His 
going to a future perpetuity of woe in " everlasting 
fire" is a sad mistake; for that "fire" was "prepared 
for the devil and his angels." 

The Specter in the Brain.* 

Professor Adlrr remarked in one of his lectures 
that it "is not probable that man has a specter (called 

* The following note of February 9, 1 885, was addressed to Dr. H. K. 
Carroll, one of the editors of The Independent: "I am endeavoring to 
occupy my mind during a slow and sorrowful convalesence with the 
thoughts that have for years possessed for me a profound interest. 
And at length I Lave got so far as to have penned, or rather pen- 
ciled, an article which I conclude to offer to The Independent for 
publication. ... It is entitled ; The Specter in the Brain,' an epithet 
applied by Professor Adler, the atheist'c lecturer, to the soul. It is 
thence an argument for the immortality of man — an old subject, but, 
I trust, discussed in a manner somewhat uew." 

It was followed by ' ; The Vanishing Specter, 1 ' the last production of 
Dr. Whedon's pen, which was published in The Independent seven- 
teen davs after his entrance into the world so beautifully portrayed. 
25 



386 Statements: Theological and Critical. 



a soul), in his brain." It is, however, certain that man 
has a specter in his entire system, and perhaps several. 
First, there is the cerebral or nervous specter — namely, 
the nervous system itself, of which the brain forms a 
part. For, though these are material and, therefore, 
thought by superficial thinkers to be non-spectral, yet 
when we proceed to analyze what we call matter, we find 
it just as spectral and unreal as spirit. Among profound- 
est thinkers, some suppose matter to be simply a hard and 
solid unique; others to be mind-created illusions of im- 
agery; and others, to be just mind itself, of a condensed 
and grosser essence. Hence, we may fairly say, in spite 
of Professor Adler, that man has a specter within him — 
namely, the whole nervous system. Nay, a little further 
analysis may show that man is a bundle of specters, in 
which respect he resembles most composite things. 

Second, there is besides this substantive material 
specter, another specter, which we call the formative 
power. This power, like a mold in which a metal is 
run, shapes the nerve substance into its proper system, 
as well as, gradually, the whole body. This power de- 
termines whether procreative substance shall shape into 
a beast, bird, or man. For all these commence in the 
maternal matrix alike, with no visible difference of form, 
and gradually shape to the figure which the formative 
power assigns. This invisible power is no part of the 
substance, or being, shaped by its operation. The sub- 
stance is the passive object; the power is the immedi- 
ate agent; and the being is the completed result. 
This formative agent is, as it were, so much divine 
power set apart by the Supreme Power to take care of 
the nature of forms of creatures and things. Thi^ (the 
plastic power of Cudworth) is essentially distinctive 
creation; not primary creation out of nothing, but the 
secondary creation, namely, of new nature-forms out of 



ESCHATOLOGY. 



387 



old material. It is distinct from all the shapings pro- 
duced by man, and works only under the apparent spon- 
taneities of Nature. This power is not only creation, 
but conservation, being the due amount of divine pow- 
er set apart for maintaining the nature-forms permanent 
or changing, and it is therefore sometimes styled con- 
stant creation. It is by this power that like produces 
like in the world, so that beast propagates beast, and 
of man, man alone is born. To this power species owe 
their permanence or variability. 

Of that formative power, the effect is life. For life 
is not a separate entity. Life, as effect in nature, is 
produced by the formative power, carrying the organ- 
ism through the processes of growth, and through all 
its evolutions, during itsliving existence. Life as cause 
is the operating formative power itself. In the vegeta- 
ble, life stops at itself; but in animals, it is the basis, as 
we hold, of soul ; intermediate, that is, between the body 
and soul ; the condition by which body is able to carry 
a soul. And so, when soul and body separate, animal 
life ceases. 

The third specter is what we will call the 4 nervous 
fLuidoid. For the above-named nervous system so ram- 
ifies with its fibers throughout the body, that a map or 
sketch thereof looks like an outline of the body itself, 
seeming to form its attenuated ghost. But it is not 
these material threads themselves that form this true 
specter the third. Within these threads are what Her- 
bert Spencer styles "the nervous currents," and, as a 
"current" can belong only to a fluid, or something 
fluid-like, so we have called it a fixti&oid. And this 
nervous fluidoidis the specter in the fibers of the nerves 
and granulations of the brain, which is vehicle of the 
feelings or sensations, which are the primary elements 
of thought, and is what we commonly call the soul. 



388 Statements : Theological axd Critical. 



And does not this answer the question, "Where is the 
soul, and what its relation to life and to corporeity ? 

Now, whatever changes this fluidoid undergoes, we 
know that it contains a witness and a certainty that 
within it is a central element of permanence. That 
witness is the memory, the wonderful power which at- 
tests our personal identity through the long lapse of 
years and changes. By memory the man of seventy 
knows that he is now thinking the same great ideas 
which he thought at seven. He knows that the think- 
er at both times is the same self. The thinking essence, 
the reflective element in the brain which thinks now, is 
the same as thought then. That thinking fluidoid, then, 
has a right to know itself to be the same soul at both 
points. Ask you why I know I am the same self as 
thought out eternity seventy years ago ? I know it just 
as I know any thing; by memory. I remember that 
thought, I remember the self that thought it, and I 
know that that thought came from the same self seven- 
ty years ago. In the thinking essence, therefore, there 
is a permanent selfhood that ma}^ last through we know 
not what extent of time. In brutes that witness exists 
in an imperfect degree. The brute fluidoid soon loses 
the impressed sensation, however vivid, unless retraced 
by repetition and habit. It has no self-conscious ego, 
and knows not how reflectively to tie the past thought 
to the ancient self, and so is utterly unable to read the 
testimony of the witness. Man's self alone attests to 
itself its own identity. 

The anima, or soul specter, is possessed, however, not 
by man alone, but by the brute creation; for in all 
creatures are nerves, brain, and thought. And, hence, 
many have concluded that there is no evidence to prove 
the immortality of man which d«-es not also prove the 
immortality of lower beings. Yet it is intimated in 



ESCHATOLOGY. 



389 



Gen. i, that the animal souls were poured forth by the 
divine fiat from the waters and "the earth," so that 
they came not from God directly, but circuitously and 
indirectly ; for, though matter is not living, yet there is 
in earth that soul essence or vitalizing power by which 
not only the animal nature, but also the animal nature 
of man is procreated and nourished. The animal soul, 
whether in man or brute, is thus nature-born. 

Let no one undervalue this fluidoid thus impregnating 
the nerve body. It is mind ; and mind is lord of mat- 
ter. In the individual man it rules through the voli- 
tions all the rational actions. In collective man it rules 
the public worlds. And, unless Atheism be true, in God 
it rules the universe. It up-ets and perverts the nature 
of things to make mind to be a mere incident or prop- 
erty of matter. If matter sometimes seems to rule, it is 
not rule but insurrection, disobedience, and usurpation, 
arising from its own inertia and impracticability. It is 
for the mind that the body exists ; for the fluidoid that 
the nerve fiber exists; and the matter is of no value 
whatever, except as it serves the interests of minds. 
The humblest insect, with a spark of mind, is superior 
to a mindless planet. The body is but the vehicle in 
which the soul resides and issues its mandates, the or- 
gan for carrying out the plans and purposes of the rea- 
son and will. 

Fourth, is the anthropic or human specter, belonging 
solely to man. For into man, by the breath of God 
(Gen. ii, 7), is infused a new nature, impregnating and 
identifying itself with his animal soul, and exalting it 
into spirit. This element of the divine dwells specially 
within the brain, enlarging and ennobling its powers, 
and so shaping the cerebral structure as to render it 
accordant for thoughts and ideas too high and vast for 
the animal soul. The human embryo passes through 



390 Statements : Theological and Ceitigal. 



the three stages in the womb — namely, the vegetable, 
the animal, and the anthropic. The two former merge 
into the latter ; so that man's fluidoid is either soul or 
spirit, or both. Some evolutionists tell us that birds 
are evolutionally derived from snakes, which can be 
done only by the infusing a higher mental essence into 
snake mind, with a corresponding transformation of 
body to match. So is man, though not generatively 
descended from a brute pedigree, but created upon a 
higher platform in the plan of living beings, an animal 
with a soul exalted into a spirit, and a body reared 
from animal proneness to a human erectness, emblem- 
atically looking forward and upward as to an immortal 
destination. 

The ideas which the spirit of man conceives, but which 
brute mind and brain cannot conceive or construct, are 
such as Infinity, Eternity, Immortality, Absolute Right. 
These are ideas that cannot be derived from impressions 
made upon a limited cerebral or nervous sensorium, but 
are formed above all matter level, in the region of pure 
spirit. A material object may be pressed upon the bod- 
ily sensibility and may be pictured upon a page, but 
not an eternity. An animal form may be stamped upon 
a wax .tablet, but not an absolute right. Infinity can- 
not be graven upon the human flesh or fibers, and so 
cannot be reproduced from a memory-tablet of matter. 
These ideas, purely ideal, are in no sense sense-derived 
images; but are reproduced by the recollection as they 
were first produced by the conception, by an act of the 
pure spirit. And now, as we judge the purpose, use, 
and destiny of a thing, as, for instance, a machine, by 
its properties, so we must judge of mind. By its capac- 
ities and provisions we must decide whether it is to be 
temporary or permanent. The properties and opera- 
tions of the snake mind accord with its earthy creep; 



ESCHATOLOGY. 



391 



the properties of the bird mind accord with its ethereal 
soar. And so, analyzing the properties and operations 
of the brute anima, we see its sole sphere of life is 
earthy and perishing; and, judging of the human spirit 
by its ideas and anticipations, we must judge it to be 
aspiring to and calculated for the celestial and immor- 
tal. If both the perishing anima and the anticipating 
spirit be incorporated into one being, man, we judge 
him to be both mortal and immortal. We thus answer 
the question, What evidence proves the immortality of 
man which does not prove the immortality of brutes? 
Have we not a right to believe that man is threefold, 
as corporeal, psychical, and spiritual; that is, vegetable, 
animal, and angel-like, or, let us say, a,nge\-oid? 

And we must emphasize the fact that the immortality 
of man is predicted not only by his mental conceptions, 
but by his bodily structure. The body must be shaped 
to symbolize every substantive idea of the mind. The 
brute brain is not so framed as to allow the idea of 
eternity to be thought by the brute mind. The proof 
of man's immortality is, therefore, not purely psycho- 
logical, but as truly also anatomical. The bodily or- 
ganism attests not only the future immortality of the 
soul, but suggests its own future immortality at the 
resurrection. Brutes do, indeed, negatively, fear death 
or destruction, but yet the positive idea of immortal- 
ity, eternity of existence, they cannot form. But the 
human race not only conceives immortality, but as a 
race seems to possess the positive universal idea, that 
immortality belongs to itself. 

To the argument for the permanence of the selfhood 
amid all changes through life, which we have drawn 
from the faculty of memory, the reply has been made 
that a scar on the body received in boyhood is also 
permanent through manhood. The ever- succeeding 



392 Statements : Theological and Critical. 



particles of matter so replace their predecessors as to 
perpetuate the scar form. It may be, then, that the 
mere material sensitive brain can retain the childhood 
impression, and so memory be but a record on a tab- 
let of mere matter. To this we answer that the ideas 
of the pure spirit, as above argued, cannot be stamped 
on a limited material surface. An eternity cannot be 
scarred upon the brain. It has no form so as to be 
pictured, and is too immensely extended for so limited 
a surface. Yet even the child conceives the full idea 
of perpetuity when told that he will see his dead broth- 
er again — never. He thence realizes the positive idea 
of forever. It is only, then, as the higher element of 
spirit pervades the human sonl that man's future eter- 
nity can be thought even by himself. 

The being created with the clear, unique, indestruc- 
tible idea of infinity must have some most important 
relations with the Infinite Beings The beinor created 
with the inborn idea of a future eternity has therein 
an inborn prediction of his own immortality. The be- 
ing created with the absolute idea of obligatory right 
must be under the law of absolute right. Such ideas 
are the highest attributes of the mental nature. They 
cannot be useless and meaningless accidents in the be- 
ing. They cannot be evolutionary remnants inherited 
from a former lower animal ancestry. And as these 
tokens of man's immortality exist in both mind and 
brain, so, as proofs of man's immortality, they are 
both intellectual and corporeal. And the proof suits 
both parts of man's nature. In the intellect we find the 
proof of the immortality of the soul. In the corporeity 
we find prediction of the resurrection of the body. 

All these transcendent facts confirm the experience 
of the wisest and best of the human race, that the spirit 
of man may commune with the spirit of God in regard 



EsCHATOLOGY. 



393 



to the realities of eternity. The human mind possesses 
all the faculties, the human brain all the apparatus for 
such communion. And the men who have in various 
ages and countries professed such experience are wor- 
thy of profound reliance. Jesus, Paul, Augustine, Ed- 
wards, Wesley, were no fanatics or enthusiasts, except 
in the noblest meaning of the epithet. And besides 
this fact of communion, there is that other fact of 
special inspiration by which the brain and voice and 
pen of man become an oracle declaring the truths of 
God to man. That inspiration may be more or less 
perfect. It may come forth, as in the words of Jesus, 
in absolute verity ; or, as recorded by his apostles, with 
less perfection; or, as in the dogmas and Bibles of the 
ethnic races, with an authority largely diminished by 
the lower elements of man's nature. Yet the saints 
who commune with God appreciate the purely inspired, 
even in the ethnic Biblia. The possibility of these 
revelations arises from the harmony of the purified 
nature of man with the nature of God. So that com- 
munion and revelation are natural. And when we are 
asked, Is immortality proved by the light of nature, 
or by revelation ? it is hardly a valid question. Nat- 
ure and revelation are essentially one in affirming that 
great truth. 

From this analysis of the combined properties of the 
brute body and soul, compared with those of the human 
body and spirit, we infer that the former are a united 
temporality, derived immediately from the earthly, and 
the latter a perpetuity derived immediately from God. 

The Vanishing Specter. 

What is death ? Though here is a vale of mystery 
of which science knows and revelation reveals but lit- 
tle, yet the anxious mind legitimately seeks to sat- 



394 Statements : Theological and Critical. 



isfy itself with the most probable conceptions. With 
the brute, death is a vanishing of the specter, an evap- 
oration of the terrene soul, and its return to the world- 
soul whence it originated. With man, it is the emer- 
gence of the human spirit from the body into the region 
of spirits. So said the Hebrew philosopher in a dictum 
in which, for a rarity, and for sake of the antithesis, the 
word spirit is applied in Scripture to the brute soul: 
"Who knoweth the spirit of man that goeth upward, 
and the spirit of the beast that goeth downward to the 
earth?" (Eccl. iii, 20.) That the writer's query — who 
knoweth f — expressed no doubt of man's ascent is clear 
from another passage, Eccl. xii, 1: "Then shall the 
dust return to the earth as it was; and the spirit shall 
return unto God who gave it." 

By this view the substance of the brute soul is not 
"annihilated" any more than the substance of the 
brute body. As the latter is resolved back into the 
chemical elements of the material world, so the former 
dissolves into the common reservoir of the world-soul. 
Its impersonal individuality is, indeed, forever effaced. 
Its capability of united thought has forever vanished. 
Its conformity of form to the form of the body is abol- 
ished. The water filling an urn is conformed to the in- 
terior form of the individual urn; but, pour it back into 
the spring whence it was dipped, and it loses its individ- 
uality in the fusion. The spirit " breathed," according 
to Moses, into the human organism, is not a part of the 
divine essence, as it is not of the world-soul ; but is 
brought as a simple substance into an original existence 
by a divine volitional effluence and, as we conceive, can 
lose its pure personality only by a counter divine voli- 
tion. That it may lose its consciousness we know by 
temporary experiences, as in our swoons and slumbers. 
It may have its consciousness, for aught we know, for- 



ESCHATOLOGY. 



395 



ever effaced without losing its personality. And those 
who believe in a future temporary final punishment 
would find this (deconsciousization) a more tenable 
theory than annihilation. 

The process of death with the redeemed man is the 
struggle of the spirit with the body to make its divine 
ascent. As it recedes, the formative-conservative pow- 
er loses its grasp upon the organism, and leaves it to 
disintegration. Very probably the spirit leaves its sig- 
natures upon the particles of that organism, indicating 
their future reorganization in a future spiritualized 
body. Says spirit to body: "I will meet you at the 
resurrection." Things as wonderful really take place 
in God's kingdom of nature. 

Inquirers are often perplexed as to the nature of the 
happiness of the blessed spirit realm. Most theorists 
have imagined a continuance in a great degree of the 
machineries and activities of our present life. But, pri- 
marily, there may be a most perfect happiness in a most 
perfect repose. There may be an absolute sweetness of 
simple existence, a transcendent delight in pure being. 
There may be no desire for pure action, but a perfect 
content in the consciousness. And in the perfect con- 
tinuity of this reposeful bliss there may be no monotony, 
no nervous tire, no desire of change, but an eternity of 
complete satisfaction. So perfect may be this bliss of 
being, that time in fact loses all measure, and the inter- 
val between death and resurrection, though by earthly 
measurement an interval of immense ages, may be but 
as a brief, starry, reposeful night before the dawn of 
the glorious morrow. Scripture • uses both these meas- 
urements in reckoning the time of the coming of the 
Son of Man to judgment. And thus, as the perceptions 
of the spirit are able to overcome distances of space, so 
may its conceptions override the distances of time. Yet 



396 Statements: Theological and Critical. 



this intense bliss of pure consciousness is not the exclu- 
sion of the bliss of action, but its basis. 

Emerging from the body, the spirit awakes into the 
pure ether of the region of bodiless spirits. This blessed 
atmosphere, we conceive, is, as it were, within the at- 
mosphere of our outside troublous worlds. For there 
are worlds within worlds, enfolding and pervading each 
other without impeding, just as light can, without ob- 
structing, pervade our earthly atmosphere. This- para- 
disaic ether is an effluence from the divine essence, and 
the emancipated spirit bathes and swims and lives there- 
in as his own native and genial element. Paradise may 
thus pervade our air above and around us, and, at 
death, the spirit enters thereinto as through a veil. 
Within that veil is the true world, of which our outside 
world is the coarse, hard shell, the crude, repulsive bark. 
Divine power can make the most solid masses of mat- 
ter (which are really porous), move through each other, 
like tenuous clouds. Even the resurrect body of Christ 
walked through the solid wall of the house, and first 
revealed itself to the eyes of his disciples at the supper- 
table. And so the resurrect bodies of all his saints will 
be so pervaded by the spirit as each to be " a spiritual 
body," as they are now so pervaded by the anima as to 
he animal bodies. Within the turbulences of our earth- 
ly atmosphere this celestial ether is a pure tranquillity. 
The discords of the elements are here sweetly calmed. 
The discord between the nature of that ether and of 
that spirit has no existence. No pestilences infect, no 
darkness obscures, no Arctic icebergs can freeze, no vol- 
canic fires consume, even if the spirit nature were sus- 
ceptible of such evils. But so transcendent is his sub- 
stance that he can swim in the glacier without chill, 
and repose in the lava bed and suffer no heat. Nay, it 
is probable that his will-power overmasters these ele- 



ESCHATOLOGY. 



ments, and brings their hostility to submission and sym- 
pathy. By a blessed concord between the infinite and 
finite wills is this ethereal loveliness created. So God, 
man, and the elements unite in a most holy peace. 

From the fact that drowned persons who have been 
resuscitated were insensible during their drowned state, 
it has been inferred that there is no spirit survival. 
But such persons were not dead. The consciousness 
was repressed, as when one takes a dose of chloroform, 
or as in a sound slumber; but the spirit had taken no 
departure, and the drowned was simply recovered from 
a swoon which would have soon become death. The 
emancipation of the spirit from the drowning swoon, 
like an awakening from the slumber, is the restoration 
of the consciousness, and, in case of death, an intro- 
duction to the scene of the new life. 

The struggle of the spirit's emergence from the body 
leaves behind it the lower elements of the tuiima, 
those holding stronger affinities with the body than 
with the spirit. The bodily appetites, the sexual, the 
nutritive, as well as the nervous susceptibilities to an- 
gry excitements, disappear. With them disappear the 
liability to the sins of the flesh. The lower tempta- 
tions are no longer possible. " They neither marry nor 
are uiven in marriage, but are like the angek of God." 
Among the angels they are augehrids. To gross nat- 
ures these departures of the animal elements may seem 
a deprivation; but there come in their place felicities 
of a diviner nature, pure from the shame intermingled 
even to earthly minds in our animal enjoyments. Nor 
does the withdrawal of the spirit from the bodily frame 
lessen its perceptions of the material world. Even here 
our senses are but the organs of the intelligence, not 
the intelligence itself. The eyes do not see, but are 
simply the spectacles through which the intelligence 



398 Statements : Theological and Critical. 



sees. The hand is not the agent that feels, but is the 
tool with which the intelligence feels. The ear hears 
not, but is merely the conductor by which the vibration 
is brought to the intelligence residing in the nervous- 
cerebral system. Thought refers all these perceptions, 
not to the external apparatus, but back to the mind, the 
self, the thinking essence, the conscious ego. The or- 
gans are the machineries through which spirit is, dur- 
ing its earthly life, adjusted to matter, and becomes 
schooled to the material world. These limitations be- 
ing dropped, the spirit becomes ready to understand 
both matter and spirit with unencumbered jDerfection. 
The intelligence sees with a new vividness, more or less 
undimmed by distance. And all the mental faculties 
are emancipated into a new powder. 

Whether the spirit has form is a question long de- 
bated among spiritual thinkers. Even Cudworth seemed 
to hold that there can be no spirit without body. But 
has force a body? Is electricity corporeal? Are not 
the mightiest agencies in nature, to our conception, bodi- 
less ? Yet, of all definite existences, there must be lim- 
itations. There certainly is a localization within us of 
the mental essence. It has a presence, where it is; and 
it has an absence, where it is not. And between the 
two, its being and its not being, there must be a bound- 
ary line or separating margin, and so an approach to 
form. But we hold that the formative power of the 
spirit is its own will. The conscious will is the center 
of the living being; and it is this which gives the spirit 
its constant or varying figure. Our human bodies are 
bounded, or, as we may say, surfaced by a skin. But 
the spirit is surfaced, and its individuality and continu- 
ity of selfhood are secured, by its own volitions. It 
needs neither body nor skin for its permanent definite 
entity. And yet such spirits may be conceived as able 



ESCHATOLOGY. 



399 



to pervade each other, just as the perceptions of the 
gazers upon a scene. Their ocular visions pervade each 
other, perception crossing perception without impedi- 
ment or confusion. 

The entrance of the spirit into the spirit world will 
not be a lonely migration into a strange or dreary soli- 
tude. Eternity, immortality, are home ideas to him, 
and it is into their home he is now being introduced. 
He is thus no foreigner in Eden. Christ has whispered 
to him on his dying bed, " This day shalt thou be with 
me in Paradise." And angels ushered Lazarus to the 
Abrahamic banquet. The angels wait upon the angel- 
oids. Of different origins and histories the two classes 
of immortals are happy associates. And wondrously 
peculiar is. the history of the human immortal. He 
comes invested and white-robed in the unique glory of 
Christ's atonement. For this he is gazed upon as a rare 
variety in the living worlds. He stands also at the 
transition point between the animal and spirit worlds. 
He is the summit of material nature, with a column of 
living ranks beneath him, and at the base of the spirit- 
ual column, which, as spirit, is more entirely like God, 
though conceding man in the atonement unparalleled 
superiority. And who doubts that, as the individual 
man enters this new region, he will be met, by the be- 
atified friends who have gone before him, with glorious 
welcome? And how wonderful the grand society 
which he now joins of the great and good in the 
world's history; the champions of truth and right in 
the earth, the glorious army of reformers, confessors, and 
martyrs, crowmd with the presence of the Great Head! 
For though Christ be bodily enthroned in the highest 
heavens, yet is he present to the eyes, unimpeded by 
distance, of those glorified spirits. They are "with 
Christ," as Paul so earnestly desired. 



400 Statements : Theological and Critical. 



And now, upon the perfectly happy consciousness 
which we have above described as the basis, how does 
our joyful anticipation build a wonderful superstruct- 
ure of felicity in action, filling the completeness of the 
being and rendering it an ever-living rapture ! To our 
faculties, enlarged into new power, there are treasures 
of glory, "an exceeding weight" (as if it were solid), 
"of glory" to be opened, which it might take an eter- 
nity to realize, enjoy, and exhaust, in which the re- 
deemed will have their full active share. Nor does the 
blissful tranquillity of the inner, ethereal world contra- 
dict the possibility of events of transcendent magni- 
tude and interest. The very phrase with which the 
New Testament designates our vast futurity, elg rovg 
aicbvag rcbv alo)VG)v, epochs of epochs, suggests the 
thought of evolutions and revolutions in which man 
is sharer. And these revolutions will be revelations; 
revelations not of dismay and disaster to him, but of 
glory and wonder; wonder at the boundless inventive 
wealth of the Infinite, ever fresh with sublime and di- 
vine novelties and surprises. Our eternity is, therefore, 
not to be thought of as a shoreless, stagnant sea, or as 
a placid, endless stream. But when our earth's " rolling 
years shall cease to move, 1 ' the moving aeons shall for- 
ever continue to roll on their stupendous cycles, filled 
with events that make the royal history of a universe 
and the divine biography of God. 



THE END. 



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